2016-17 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey Details

While most modern hockey players use a composite stick made up of a variety of materials that are meant to give them a competitive edge, there are still some loyal types that swear by the trusty wooden stick which evolved over decades.

Pieces of game-used sticks have long been coveted by hockey card collectors and Leaf Trading Cards is set to release an all-new product in October which puts the wood in the hobby’s hands with the debuting 2016-17 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey. With four game-used stick cards per box, the content draws from the history of the game and its greats. The cards are also a bit of a departure from the company’s other hockey releases as they do not feature foil accents on the front, opting for more of a traditional feel.

Memorabilia Cards

The core memorabilia collection expected to come out of packs of 2016-17 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey is the regular Game-Used Stick set, which features not only a deep checklist, but a large piece of stick. The men in the nets get a jumbo-sized set of their own as well with Game-Used Goalie Stick.

Big scorers are recognized individually with the triple-piece 50 Goal Club set and those that managed to produce huge totals over the course of their careers are part of the 500 Goal Club cards which contain a whopping eight stick pieces. In fact, there are two other sets with eight pieces that have been announced in the form of Fantasy Stick Rack and All-Time Lumber Team 8’s, the latter of which is based on talents that were able to shine for the same club.

Among the other sets announced are Original Sticks, which draws from a pool of talent that played for Original Six clubs, and Original Sticks Six, which takes a player from each of the teams and puts them together on a single card. Legendary Lumber has large pieces from iconic names while Legendary Lines examines trios that accomplished great things together such as the Production Line of Sid Abel, Ted Lindsay, and Gordie Howe or the KLM Line of Soviet stars Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov, and Sergei Makarov. All-Star History has four hunks of wood embedded into each card and the combinations date back to the first official NHL All-Star Game that took place in 1947.

The only set announced that has any is Twig Sigs and they will have two pieces of stick along with a player’s autograph. Also look for Blade 2 Blade which used stick blade pieces from two different stars.

Finally, 2016-17 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey has a pair of sets with truly unique stick pieces in the form of Nameplates and Dual Nameplates. Expected combinations for the dual version include Brett Hull and Bobby Hull along with Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier.

2016-17 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey at a glance:

Packs per box: 1
Cards per pack: 4
Release date: October, 2016

What to expect in a hobby box:

– Four memorabilia cards featuring game-used stick pieces

Stephen Laroche can be found on Twitter @Stephen_Laroche.