Elite has been brought to the hockey side which means some pretty cool things for the hockey collectors. Featuring a ton of foil board, it’s a product which has transformed alot over several years but has always kept some of greatness from the original Elite series back in the day.

Now in hockey, it features some goodies of old as well as some really cool additions, which I was able to pull so I’ll get to talk about it more in the review! It’s great when things add up like that. So thanks to Panini for providing this box for review and we will get down to it with the first year of Panini Elite hockey.

Design:

I love how the design is just like some old school Elite. It’s very boxy with the frames around the foil board, which isn’t seen that much anymore. However, the design in itself is basic to the point where it just looks clean and clear. No extra frills in the base design or even the inserts. It’s quietly very nice for what it is. The Aspirations die-cuts are always nice, however I wonder why they aren’t numbered like in every other Elite product? But what shines is the Prime Numbers insert. You have 3 different die-cut cards which you can put together to form one long card with a game used piece, autograph, and autographed patch. They are beautiful and a fun thing for a collectors to try and put together.

Checklist:

The checklist is phenomenal for this product. Packed with today’s stars, recent superstars, and some future stars as well, this product has something for just about everyone other than the vintage hockey collector. Although I find there is a large number of rookies in this product, they still have all the top names with the great rookies being mostly SP’d, which isn’t bad as that helps their value, but it also makes finding them a little harder and most will be stuck with no name rookies. But other than that, there are some great names in the inserts and “hit” cards, so I think this is a job well done.

Value:

Now this part is difficult. $120, in my opinion, is a bit much for this product. However, it does have some great autograph names involved so that may be a reason why it’s priced a little higher as well as on-card autographs (more for shipping to players.) I was close to a 3 1/2 on this one but I went with the 4 stars because the checklist is so good. Another issue I have though, is that the Aspirations die-cuts weren’t numbered like they are in almost every other version of Elite. I think that may bring down the value a bit as well as we don’t really know the print run on the regular Aspirations. Value is always the toughest part to judge in a product and I think Panini’s prices in general start off a little high, but the market will dictate the price soon enough. I think this would be better around $90-$100.

Overall:

Overall, Panini did a pretty swell job their first time through with the Elite brand in hockey. The design is nothing exciting, however, it is very good for what it is. I love the die-cuts and LOVE the Prime Numbers insert set as well so those were definitely good ideas. I thought the checklist was better than usual as well with some more recent superstars in autograph and jersey form as well as their own little insert sets. Finally, the price on the product I find to be a bit high, but that’s nothing new coming from me and looking at Panini products. I’d like to see a breakdown of what costs what in this product to find a way to bring the price down to where I thought it would be more reasonable. But that’s just me. But still, good job to Panini on this one.

Thanks again to Panini for providing this box for review. You can find them all over the internet by viewing their official site, blog, Twitter, Facebook, and they probably have a ton of other stuff too.

Not pictured: Rookie Autograph Variations of Erik Gudbranson Redemption