Box Break: 2007-08 Between the Pipes

This is the third of four boxes I picked up a few weeks ago. I've never even purchased a pack of Between the Pipes before so I didn't really know what to expect. All I knew was I had a chance to pull a Mask card and that was enough for me. 

Future Stars:

I kind of like the design they went with for the Future Stars set, especially the way the background of the picture is black and white, leaving the player image to stand out. It was also a plus that I pulled this Jimmy Howard for my collection. 

Stars of the Game:

Now that I've started actively looking for Hasek cards again, this was another nice addition to my Hasek collection. I like these cards for some reason, especially the way the image is tinted. It's also pretty neat how they made the center of the A's stars. 

Greats of the Game:

These are nice, too bad they couldn't find a picture of Sawchuk wearing a mask for this one. Either way, he is definitely one of the greats of the game. 

The Rival League:

The WHA was way before my time, as I'm only 22, so it's interesting for me to see the teams and uniforms from a league I never knew. This Gerry Cheevers stood out to me because of the purple uniform and his famous stitches mask. 

The Future of Goaltending:

I'm not sure why there is a future stars then a future of goaltending set, but either way this one doesn't look all that bad. I like how the design comes down to a point at the bottom of the card as well as the way the colors faded toward the edges. 

GoalieGraphs:

I've liked these since I purchased the Howard from the set and was happy to pull two of them in Pekka Rinne and Drew MacIntyre. Notice they use the exact same background on all of the cards from this set, and just crop the player image into it each time. 

The Mask V:

These cards are the reason this box appealed to me for the price I got it at. I only got this one, but I'll take it as I'm happy to add any mask card to my collection. I think this edition of The Mask is one of the best with the blue background and simple silver foil text. 

Crease Cut Emblem:

I didn't know what to expect memorabilia wise from this box, so I was pretty excited to see this pop out about half way through the box. Supposedly there are only ten copies of this card out there, but it's not numbered anywhere on the card itself. 

The four-color swatch is from the 2007 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects game. This is now the lowest numbered card in my entire collection and probably the nicest patch card I've ever pulled. I've never heard of Jeremy Smith before, but that doesn't bother me, plus he played for a local team, the Plymouth Whalers, so that's cool. 

This was by far the best of the first three boxes from the show. It had some nice base cards and subsets, then a few autos and an awesome patch card. Can't complain about that. I definitely would not be opposed to picking up another box or two of this stuff next time.