With Jimmy Howard being retired now, there are likely not going to be a lot of new cards for him any time soon. So when I see him included in any of Upper Deck's 2020-21 checklists, I want to jump on those cards as soon as I can. One of the nice surprises that came up this season is the Winter Classic Memories set from Black Diamond.
This was an eleven card set spanning multiple Winter Classics and it includes names like Alexander Ovechkin, Patrick Kane and Henrik Lundqvist. They are relatively thick cards and have a recessed area in the center for a rainbow foil insert. They look great in person.
Howard's card has a nice close up shot of his Winter Classic mask and even has some nice snowfall in the background. You can even see a bit of his custom brown glove that was part of an awesome overall setup. If only the ref wasn't in the background, it would be perfect.
I've been out of the hockey card market for a long time now (outside of buying Sharks singles here and there). But it's nice to see UD keep the Black Diamond product line alive. I wonder if they still have the four different diamond tiers in their base set... or create the <><>, <><><>, and <><><><> parallels.
ReplyDeleteYep, I always liked Black Diamond when I was a kid (late 90's and early 00's) when it was still a middle of the road product. While they have some really cool designs now, I'm not a huge fan of it being made into one of UD's high end, hit focused sets.
DeleteNot sure on the tiers though. I haven't bought and BD recently and haven't paid close enough attention to posts on Twitter and what not about it.