People often ask me, “What is the next big thing for trading cards?” It is incredibly difficult to constantly innovate a 2 ˝” x 3 ˝” piece of card stock, but time and time again Upper Deck has done it. We were founded on making a better trading card and that drive continues here today. So as we brainstormed, “What is the next big thing for Black Diamond Hockey?” we had a couple ideas that we put into place.

The first thing we looked at was creating a super-premium, high-end driver for the set which we have done with the “Quad Diamond Rookie Gems Relics” trading cards. Now diamond cards have been tried before, but collectors have been, “ho-hum” about them as they have either contained small pieces of glass or even smaller diamonds. Long story short these cards were not much to look at and were all too readily available. They were not special.

Upper Deck’s “Quad Diamond Rookie Gems Relics” cards were recently completed and suffice it to say, they are absolutely gorgeous with four huge one karat diamonds embedded in the trading card. They look like something that you would see in the men’s section of a really cool Tiffany’s. I was surprised we didn’t have a security guard watching over them. We debuted them at the 2014 Las Vegas Industry Summit and shop owners were in awe of the quality and beauty of these cards.

The second thing we wanted to innovate was how we deliver these cards to our fans. Obviously given the fact these cards are incredibly thick, they would stick out like a sore thumb in a pack of trading cards so we had to use redemption cards for them. We felt however the redemption process has gotten a little tired and lazy so we wanted to create a different way of delivering these cards to our fans. We came up with the Diamond Draft. Scheduled to take place the day before the NHL® Draft Lottery, this LIVE event will occur on Breakers TV where fans can watch it all go down. Customers lucky enough to pull and register these cards will be entered into a ping pong ball lottery event. We will pull their names from the lottery ball device and call them LIVE to see which player they will take in the Diamond Draft. We will call customers live who have redeemed these cards for them to make their selection. Those participating will provide a list of the players they would like in order in the event they should be unavailable for the live call. Cards will be shipped immediately after the draft.

Fans who have redeemed these cards found randomly in 2013-14 NHL Black Diamond packs are eligible to take place in the Diamond Draft where they will all have a shot at getting a top card.

Fans who pull one of these redemption cards after this event, prior to them expiring, will receive one of the remaining cards at random. It should make for a fun and engaging event with some very lucky NHL® collectors. Make sure to check it out when it all goes down on April 14, 2014 at 5:30 p.m. So don’t delay, if you are sitting on one of these redemptions, get it entered today! Pacific. Below is a full checklist of the players that will be available for Upper Deck’s first-ever Diamond Draft.

Which card would you take first in the Diamond Draft?