Completed Set - 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey

Each year for the past 3 years I've gone after the flagship Upper Deck hockey set. It's been the perfect set for me to collect at 400 cards (since I don't chase all the Young Guns) split up over 2 releases. It covers all of your major stars and a good deal of the lesser-known players as well, and features some fantastic short printed rookie cards and Upper Deck's fantastic photography.

The other day a package arrived containing the last few cards I needed to complete this year's Series 1 set. Perfect timing with the release of Series 2 right around the corner. Here are a few of my favorite cards from the set. I've already posted quite a few so I've tried to choose some here that I haven't shown yet. I was too lazy to look through my backlog of posts though, so you'll just have to deal with it if you've seen any of these before...

#4 - Zdeno Chara - I love the card but I wish I would see a little more of this out of Zdeno when I'm ACTUALLY WATCHING the Bruins games. It's been so frustrating I've had to resist the urge to chuck the remote at the TV the past few games.

#27 - Jesse Winchester - Unfortunately there are more tightly-cropped dud cards in this year's set than there were last year.

#48 - Evgeni Malkin - Seated next to the Conn Smythe trophy.

#63 - Sean Avery - Sean just lit the lamp, and Jeff Carter's +/- rating just dropped a point.

#87 - Martin St. Louis - OK, help me out with this. Is it possible that St. Louis is photoshopped into this picture? If you click on the picture to look at the full size scan, it almost seems in looking at the edges of his legs and skates like this may have been doctored. The ice seems really white too, almost washed out. I don't see any lines on the ice, and where would Martin possibly be standing during a game where there would be nobody else in a photo covering that large an expanse of ice? The seats are pretty packed, so this doesn't look like a shot taken during warm-ups or anything. For some reason I thought modern Upper Deck hockey sets were immune to doctored photos, but I'm starting to wonder. There are a couple of others in the set that look strange to me too, including Teemu Selanne's base card. What do you think?

#95 - Semyon Varlamov - An absolutely perfect card, probably my single favorite card from Series 1.

#102 - Jeff Woywitka - I really like the Blues uniform, too bad he's a Dallas Star. I watch a TON of hockey and I have to admit that I have never heard of this guy. That rarely ever happens to me.

#109 - Patrick Sharp

#122 - Johan Franzen - Crosby's getting awfully friendly here. The Red Wings have really missed Franzen this year...

#135 - Jonathan Quick - Here's a card where I think the design of the set works really well with the photo they selected.

#146 - Jonas Hiller - This card is just plain odd.

#166 - Daniel Sedin - Gotta love the jersey, and bonus points for a matching logo on the pants. Daniel and brother Henrik are having absolutely outstanding seasons. In fact, at the time of this post Henrik has more points than anyone in the National Hockey League, and Daniel has a shot at besting his career-high in points, despite missing a significant number of games. I wish the Bruins had a few players who could score like these guys...

#175 - Cory Sarich - Cory's just finishing off a nice check here (maybe even a cross-check given that stick position). This check pales in comparison to the one portrayed on teammate Dion Phaneuf's card in last year's set, which is probably one of my favorite cards released in the last couple of years.

#178 - Robyn Regehr - That puck is headed right for Robyn, but luckily looks like it will hit him in a padded area. When I played hockey my elbow pads did not come anywhere near that far down my arm!

#188 - Owen Nolan - I used to love pulling this guy's cards back in the early 90's when he was a Quebec Nordique. I like this shot of the grizzled veteran.

#200 - Sidney Crosby Checklist - As has been standard for the past few years (at least since I started collecting again) the final two base cards in each series are the checklist cards.

On a completely random note...even though Vincent LeCavalier does not have a card in the set, he is pictured prominently on two different cards taking face-offs against the subjects (Nathan Horton and Joe Pavelski).

Well, that about sums it up. I think I like last year's design slightly better, but this is still a solid set and a must have for a hockey card set collector. I will definitely be snatching up some Series 2 when it hits shelves next month!