NHL Hockey Aces 1996-1997

NHL Aces is a perfect example of the classical deck of sports cards. Dating from all the way back to the days of cigarette cards, the motif of each card being a single player has endured as the standard. And with the proliferation of trading cards (and with their explosion as a major money-making business), this standard is unlikely to change soon. Indeed, the only major difference between these cards and trading cards are the suit ranks on the front and the lack of statistics on the back.

Many of these decks are made every year for many different sports. Most of the major sports leagues look to the U.S. Playing Card Co. as their supplier for these promotional and souvenir decks, not least because of their size, reliability and existing body of work. I have a half dozen of these decks from the recent past, dating only back to 1993, including football, baseball and hockey. With a little effort on my part, I could easily cover every major sport for ten years just from USPC. But many other manufacturers have made inroads into the sports playing card industry, and I expect the market will only widen with time.

This deck features the top players in NHL hockey for the 1996-7 season. The criteria for inclusion and ranking wasn't provided with the deck, but a quick perusal seems to indicate that they tried to include at least one layer from every team. Beyond that, they also made sure that the finalists and winners of the league's players awards appear. And as a nod to the large number of French-Canadian hockey fans, most of the information on the cards is also written in French. And for those partisans of the Western Conference, rest assured the other joker is the Eastern Conference.

All images © 1996, USPC, NHL and NHLPA, displayed here for commentary, analysis and appreciation only.