Beckett Hockey Magazine and Why I Hate It

When I first contemplated bringing hockey on board to this website, I needed a reference, a starting point as to where the hobby had been, where it is now and where it’s headed.  So I bought one issue (the December 2008 issue).  Now I realize the entire hobby, except for what ITG brings to the table, is dominated by Upper Deck.  In 2005 Upper Deck got an exclusive contract to produce cards for 5 years.  Since that historic contract was put into place, all the industry has seen is the same drivel year after year. Nothing adventurous, endless sets, short printed rookies, same dopey inserts for every set.

Here comes the problem for Beckett Magazine, Upper Deck is essentially their biggest / only card advertiser.  So if you are Beckett, what do you do? Can you possibly be partial on articles ? Can you put anything other than Upper Deck products on your hot list? Of course not, you’d never want to piss off the hand that feeds you.  So essentially the end product looks like a brochure for Upper Deck with a price guide thrown in there.

I implore you to start reading the articles, one which really got me heated was the article concerning Upper Deck’s exclusive contract with the NHL and the NHLPA.  Writing a blog as I have for the past year has taught me one thing. Get the facts right and have some credibility or the masses will skewer you (that and have lots of contests). Beckett has taken the awful journalism to new levels.  They no longer look for experts when getting quotes for articles, instead they lean on the users of their forum boards.  You don’t get people’s names and locations in a article, you get handles.  This article quotes (and I’m not making this up) FattyMcGee72 (page 16 middle column).  As I’m reading the article, I’m looking for a hobby expert or insider to let me know that “I think ITG being the other card company would be a big  mistake, with Superlative and the new Ultimate, ITG has proven that they have zero new ideasand no clue how to create a visually appealing product. Yes there are a few ITG zombies who will always buy the product, but I can’t see more people buying ITG stuff as days go by. I truly miss Topps.” Now as a person who writes posts on a daily basis, I read this quote and my jaw drops.

Beckett are you seriously incorporating forum moron’s views into your articles? Why bother, this is the kind of thing that gets hashed out on the message boards and is seriously bad reading there, why in the world would you quote such an asinine user? I do agree with this user in that I do miss Topps.  Other than that it’s horse crap. ITG and Upper Deck can’t be compared.  Because of the contract exclusivity, ITG can only produce cards of retired stars and minor and junior hockey players.  Given an opportunity to create a set of cards with NHL players, the did fine, just look at  the Be A Player sets from the pre – lockout days. It’s the equivalent of comparing Tri-Star Elegance to Upper Deck Black.  It’s just two very different genres.  Personally I like the ITG sets as I have always liked the minor league aspect of the games (both in hockey and in baseball).

Just so you understand where I am coming from, let’s take a look at the Upper Deck Hockey sets from last season:

• The Cup – Incredibly expensive and almost never pays for itself.
• MVP – A step up money wise from Victory, but essentially it’s the same set.
• Victory – The base set for Upper Deck but the SP rookies will drive you nuts.
• Legends Masterpieces – Beautiful set, I have nothing bad to say about it other than it’s a bit too pricey for what you get.
• ICE – Compares to the Cup but it’s cheaper.  Not sure what purpose it serves since Trilogy is essentially the same thing.
• Black – A cheaper (albeit by not much) version of The Cup.
• O-Pee-Chee – Their best set, but it takes at least 4 hobby boxes (at $60 each) to complete the base set forget about the SP set of 100.
• Black Diaomond – Nice set, has a purpose, it’s a step up from O-Pee-Chee, more along the lines of ICE and Trilogy.
• Upper Deck – Cards never seem to change, they always have that same look and I am having trouble justifying why they even put it out every year.
• Trilogy – Ask Topps how Moments and Milestones did, sequentially numbered sets just don’t work.
• Ultra Hockey – Too pricey for what’s essentially a flashier version of MVP.
• Artifacts – Never liked this set for Hockey, just doesn’t work.  It’s much easier to see it for baseball or football.

I probably missed a few but you’re getting the picture. Beckett portrays Upper Deck as living up to it’s responsibility to create superior NHL products. The sad truth is though, that without that need to create a better product year in and year out, why should they get creative? There’s no competition. The NHL really needs to look into the better next year.

Back to Beckett though, the journalism (if you can call it that) lately is just atrocious. Are there any proofreaders there? I find countless errors in all of their price guides.  The articles lately have been tedious to read and the input they take from their message boards is so transparent it reeks of salesmanship. So often I read the articles and see reference to other Beckett products.  Here are a few I read every few pages:

• “Join our message boards and weigh in on some of the hot topics in the industry”
• “You can find most of your answers in our yearly price guides on sale for just $29.95 at your local bookstore”
• “For the most up to date price changes register and become a member at Beckett.com”

It just makes me sick to see so much in magazine promotion.  Would you ever see that from Time or Newsweek? So if you are going to be a hobby magazine, then report on the hobby using viable sources (not FattyMcGee72).  Try to become more impartial, I know UD is paying the bill but guess what they are so interlocked with your publication they have no choice but to advertise with you.  It’s OK not to like some of their products.  Don’t have a rating scale of 1 to 5 if you never dip below 3 because you’re scared to lose sponsorship.  Finally, for the sake of my sanity, please remove any message board lunacy from the magazine if I wanted to read that crap I would look at your message boards. Of course I would say don’t only show shot of people pulling great hits from Upper Deck, then I realized that FattyMcGee72 doesn’t like to collect or even see ITG,  so at least you know your message board audience.