Ladies and gentlemen, I am Mike Xtremist, aka Caps Tattoo Guy, and I collect hockey cards. I currently have over 13,000 in my collection, and it continues to grow thanks to new seasons, new sets, and new players to showcase.
To kick off the 2011-12 NHL Cards Season is the Victory set by Upper Deck. Victory came out on August 2nd, 2011 (Yes! A month and a half before Training Camp even started!), and it is a great starter set for your 2011-12 collection. The Washington Capitals have nine regular cards, one rookie card, three Game Breakers insert cards, two Stars of the Game insert cards, and four MVP cards. MVP was a set before being discontinued after the 2009-10 season, but after much fan backlash it is back as a secondary set within the Victory set.
The downside to Victory coming out in August is that they base their team sets on who was on the roster when the season ended. The Washington Capitals team set is as follows.
Regular Team Set
Michal Neuvirth, Brooks Laich, Jason Arnott (Now with St. Louis), Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, Semyon Varlamov (traded to Colorado), and John Carlson.
Rookie Set
Todd Ford
Game Breakers
Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom.
Stars of the Game
Alex Ovechkin, and Nicklas Backstrom
MVP
Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green.
As you can see, in this 400 card set (200 regular cards, 50 rookie cards, 25 Game Breakers, 25 Stars of the Game, and 100 MVP cards) you get 19 Capitals cards. A bonus is that the set is relatively cheap too. Booster boxes sell at retail stores for $9.99, and individual packs are $0.99.
For Caps Outsider, I’ll also be doing a video blog to showcase the Caps cards and many other things (Please note that I have just started video blogging about hockey cards, so if it is a bit blurry I apologize in advance.)
Follow the Caps Tattoo Guy on Twitter at @MikeXtremist and Taylor Lewis @BloodSwearIce.
