Wednesday, August 19, 2020

2003-04 In The Game Toronto Star Hockey

A very obscure hockey card pack. I have no info outside of 100 card set. Comes with 4 base cards and 1 foil card. On the back of cover card.....
....a local sports group (I assume around Toronto area) can win one of three prize sponsorships. On to the cards.
8 - Sergei Samsonov - good design and picture selection. The back got previous year's stats along with short reading material.
12 - Rod Brind'Amour
52 - Patrik Elias
68 - Patrick Lalime
F-18 - Jarome Iginla - the foil card of the pack. Did get to Cup finals with Flames but end up losing. He finished his career Cup-less.

Anyone know any info of this set?

7 comments:

hockey kazi said...

https://www.beckett.com/hockey/2003-04/itg-toronto-star

baseballcardstore.ca said...

Complete boxes would always yield the same foil card in each pack, which really sucks for set building or getting variety.
Not terribly scarce yet not a mainstream product, singles of the base set shouldn't be difficult to find the foils will be because of the way they were distributed.Insane how 16 years has passed since these came out, i remember paying 1$ per pack or 20$ per box back then.

Fuji said...

Never seen these before, but if all of the foil cards from a single box are the same... that's kind of a bummer. But I guess if you're a set builder who enjoys a challenge, it could be kinda cool.

Anonymous said...

I bought a box at Walmart about 10 years ago for $5. I didn't know at the time that the foil card was the same for every pack in the box. Luckily for me I bought a box with the Lemieux foil. I was about 5-7 cards short of putting a set together from the box. Eventually was able to finish the set and the foil set.
Hard to believe that the packs retailed for $2 or $3 when they came out. It's a nice little set. And yes the foils are challenging with the box set up.

Stephen Laroche said...

Well, I think it might be appropriate to chime in. I wrote the backs for the base and foil cards a few months before becoming a full-time employee at In The Game. I wasn't paid cash to do them, but I was given a couple of sets and a pro model Mario Lemieux Penguins jersey (and probably some other goodies). This was the second set I ever worked on for the company.

The set was released over the course of a month with new boxes with a specific foil card issued each day. There was also a folio collectors could put all the foils into. It was a strange distribution method, but it is great to see people still ripping open packs today!

Rebel Coyote said...

Thank you Stephen and welcome here! Great to know this info on this. I got the pack from a loaded box of hockey cards Cardone sells. That Lemieux jersey is great to have as one of many goodies you received.

Anonymous said...

Just stumble on a modano box. weird that all the pack have the same cards...