Upper Deck CHL provides an opportunity to do some hockey prospecting!
Baseball card collectors have what seems like an endless supply of opportunities to buy cards of minor league and amateur players. Panini Stars and Stripes, several Bowman releases, and Topps products like Heritage Minors and Pro Debut cover pretty much every level of professional and amateur baseball.
Hockey card collectors don’t have quite as many choices, but Upper Deck does provide a few options. On eBay, you can find products based on the Canadian National Team, AHL, and this product, Upper Deck CHL, which focuses on the Canadian Hockey League.
The 2021-22 set is big. The base set includes 450 cards. Cards 1-300 make up the standard base set. Cards 301-400 are called Base Stars and Base Star Rookies and are short printed and come in 1:2 packs. The 2020-21 CHL Star Rookies make up cards 401-450 and are even more short printed. They fall 1:4 packs.
eBay sales show Connor Bedard is one of the biggest chases of this set.
Upper Deck has become known for creative inserts and there are several fun inserts in 2021-22 Upper Deck CHL. Next Step, They’re Exceptional, Top Imports, CHL Profiles, Destination The Show, and First Draft all add an element of chase and shine. I’m a big fan of these inserts.
2021-22 Upper Deck CHL base cards
The base sets includes a variety of parallels as well. They include ePack Blue Parallels, Exclusives /100 and High Gloss /10.
There are no relic cards in this product, but there are a variety of autographs available. Hobby boxes don’t promise an auto, but it seems based on odds, you should be able to expect an autograph in at least every two boxes. The only thing the boxes promise is an clear acetate Star or Star Rookie. The box I opened included an Auto, an Exclusives /100, and the Star Acetate card.
Here are examples of an Exclusives parallel, an autograph, and and Acetate Stars
If you are a fan of one of these CHL teams or some of the minor league players on the checklist, this is a great product for you to collect. However, I can’t recommend collecting this product by opening sealed boxes.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to open. The problem is the chase for Connor Bedard has elevated the price of sealed wax and outside of Bedard, there just isn’t much value in the other players. If you don’t hit a good card of him, there is a chance that you’ll end up with $20 of cards for your $150 purchase. For example, there are tons of the Exclusives parallels /100 for less than $1 on COMC and many High Gloss /10 for under $10. Even the auto’s are cheap. Dozens of them are also less than $1.
In my opinion, sets and singles are the way to go if you want to go after cards from this set!
If you love hockey cards, you may also be intersted in checking out a couple of the other reviews I’ve done on Upper Deck’s recent Hockey Releases. Here are links to an Box Battle between 2022-23 Allure and 2022-23 SP Authentic, a Box Battle between 2022-23 Extended Series and 2023-24 MVP, and my review of 2023 Team Canada Juniors.
2021-22 Upper Deck CHL has a variety of unique insert cards.