My National Hockey Card Day 2012 Experience

Well yesterday was the first year since getting into the hobby again that I participated in National Hockey Card Day; even brought along my fiance for the extra pack help.

The night before I took a few minutes and scoutted out the hobby stores in my area (using the list given on Upper Decks website) that were partaking in the event - weren't many listed to be honest, two stores actually.

The first hobby store I hit up wasn't even participating in the event, albit being a listed location on Upper Decks website - the guy was pretty straight up and slightly rude about it, claiming that they weren't doing it because they had to pay for the packs; understandable I guess but his tone and quick reaction to my question turned me off entirely.

Good enough!  Next stop was the Toys R' Us - their way of celebrating National Hockey Card Day was with a free oversized 2012 NHCD card with the purchase of any Upper Deck product.  Limited one per customer.

I picked up a $0.99 pack of 2008-09 Upper Deck Victory from a bin and claimed my oversized card:

#OS4 Mario Lemieux, my all-time favorite player.  The oversized card I had hoped to receive!
We then headed to the other (and final) hobby store with fingers crossed, to take our chances at a couple packs of National Hockey Card Day cards.  We were in luck!  We both received a pack; here's the breakdown - I am very pleased with the cards that I pulled from just these two packs as they featured all the players I had hoped to pull.

Wayne Gretzky / Heroes #11
Mark Messier / Heroes #14
Mario Lemieux / Heroes # 13

Robero Luongo / Pride Of Canada #8
Taylor Hall / Pride Of Canada # 6
P.K. Subban / Pride Of Canada #7

Jonathan Toews / Pride Of Canada # 10

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins / Rookies #2

Martin Brodeur / Heroes #15