2016 Upper Deck World Cup of Hockey

The World Cup of Hockey is back after a 12 year lay off. This is the 3rd time it's being played. The US took the first one played in 1996 in an amazing 3 game finals against Canada. In the final game, Team USA came back in the 3rd with 4 unanswered goals in the final 3:18 to take home the first trophy. Team Canada redeemed the loss taking the 2nd WCoH in 2004, beating Finland in a single game final 3-2.

This year's edition did not start well for Team USA, getting blanked yesterday by Team Europe, which is a team comprised of players not in the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Sweden. Those 4 countries have their own teams. Let's hope, for my fandom, they figure out what went wrong and right the ship.

Upper Deck, having the exclusive NHL license, put out a 40 card set for the WCoH as giveaway packs this weekend. Similar to other free pack giveaways, you can get them at your LCS this weekend. I was fortunate enough to be out this morning and stopped at my LCS the moment it opened. After some purchases, I scored 5 packs. The 4 color foil is nice on the pack, along with the tournament logo. Yeah, the final prize is a little ugly, but.... Like other free packs, autographed cards are a possibility. Five cards. Here we go.

High gloss on these bad boys. You have the player in the country sweater, for those that are posed shots. There are some images that are close cropped face shots where you can tell the player is in their club sweater. Oh, and hey Jamie? Camera is over here. No...here. Look here. Whatever...

Here's Pekka in an obvious Predators uniform on the card. You see all the maple leafs in the background patterns. World Cup of Hockey replaced the Canada Cup tournament.

And did I mention? NO FOIL!!!! Not a metallic shimmer to be found. I sort of wish Krejci went the way of Benn and looked away from the camera. He is staying deep into my soul.

I was a bit perplexed about the sweater Kucherov is wearing. It's not Russia, and the cut isn't really the Lightning. Until I realized UD shopped out the NHL shield that is normally at the center of the neck. And I am confused more as the NHL is the chief creator of the WCoH, and UD has their license, so.... Hey - enough thinking. Here's the backs.

Duplicate images. No career stats to be found. Just the personal information and some tales about international playing career. I glanced at the other backs and some do mention their NHL clubs, but the talk is more focused on their international play.

Ok - that was four and I just showed the back. What up, Jeff? Well, if you follow me on Twitter, you should see where this is going.

Oh hell yeah!!!! Magenta printing plate of Sid the Kid. Besides pulling Ovechkin, Kane or Toews, this would be the other player you would want a 1/1 from. I will probably flip this for some cash, unless one of you readers has a Kane or Toews plate from this set.