Thursday, January 17, 2013

The NHLPA's Major Rookie Card Announcement


Yesterday the NHLPA released a statement that will greatly affect Panini and Upper Deck’s 2012-13 NHL release calendar. The announcement states that the only rookies that are eligible to be included in 2012-13 products are players who debuted after the 2012 NHL All-Star game (1/29/12) through the end of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final (6/11/12).

This means that there will not be any cards of players who were drafted in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft in June and there will not be any rookie cards of players who will make an appearance during the upcoming shortened season that begins on Saturday. This will result in a double rookie class in next year’s releases, similar to what happened following the 2004-05 lockout.

Panini has cancelled Titanium and Dominion but they still have Limited, Rookie Anthology and Prime on the calendar. Upper Deck has not made any announcements about upcoming products. The big question being asked is how the companies intend on dealing with redemptions in sets that have already hit the shelves.

No comments:

Post a Comment