Packs Per Box: 15
Cards Per Pack: 5 (four regular size, one jumbo)
Cards Per Box: 73 (58 regular, 15 jumbo)
Set Completion: 29 percent (53 of 180)
Duplicates: 1
Quality Control: Several of the jumbo cards had noticeably dinged corners





Rookies (3) Jeff Woywitka, Jeff Carter, Henrik Lundqvist
Red Parallels (11): Sidney Crosby, Steve Bernier, Rene Bourque, Petr Prucha, Gilbert Brule, Brendan Shanahan, Martin Brodeur, Marian Hossa, Ed Belfour, Alex Tanguay, Bill Guerin
Blue Parallels (3) Rob Blake, Sidney Crosby, Jose Theodore
Beige Parallel (1) Ryan Getzlaf
Matte Parallels (1) Brendan Shanahan #'d/100
Matted Materials (2) Adam Foote, Simon Gagne



We Say: Bee Hive looks like a mixed bag of a product, but if you can fight past one of the most confusing set-ups of the season, you might find it worthwhile.

The base cards are sharp, with one of the nicest designs of the season. Kudos to UD for making something so modern that also manages to be evocative of the past as well.

You get three RCs per box, and all things considered, this is probably the best trio we've pulled all year. The memorabilia cards boasted a fresh, eye-catching design, but the swatches are small, and pulling Adam Foote is like getting a free cockroach with your salad. Yuck.

The one-per-pack jumbos are fairly nice, but we all know how much the hobby loves oversized cards. Seeing as how these vary little from what we've seen in the past, the fact that they're numbered as part of the base set is the only thing that will maintain their viability. The rookies in the jumbo set are numbered differently (R1-R5), so they won't be recognized as RCs. And what's up with the fake place-holder autograph on Alexander Ovechkin's card?

The real issue with this product is that UD loaded it with parallels, and frankly, you can't keep track of ‘em without a scorecard. First thing you need to know is that there are at least 10 different border colours in the base set, including blue, red, beige and gold. That's a problem because, among the parallels you'll find . . . blue, red, beige and gold.

So how do you tell the difference? The red parallels have a red border with a portrait photograph and the stats and bio on the back are in red, as opposed to black. They're supposed to be 1:2 packs, but we pulled 11 of them.

Blue parallels have a blue border, an action photograph and stats and bio in blue. The beige variation offers a beige border and features the player's facsimile signature on the front and a beige stats package. The gold variation features a gold border and a Bee Hive bio on the card back. You might want to keep this info handy—we did and it still took us awhile to figure out what we pulled. Hopefully UD will learn a lesson from this and avoid making things so difficult in the future.

The other parallel we pulled—the Shanahan Matte—gives us reason to believe this will be the one variation that collectors actually will care about. The design is unique and instantly recognizable, and really harkens back to the old Bee Hive theme. Add in the proven value of serial numbering out of 100 and the Matte set looks like a real winner.