1980-81 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Cards

By Patrick Mondout

O-Pee-Chee's (OPC) hockey card set for 1980-81 featured a great crop of rookies. Members of the gold medal winning US Olympic team had decals on the front of their cards denoting the achievement - an odd feature for a Canadian issue (though the cards were designed by Topps in New York).

OPC not only raised the prices of the wax packs to a 20¢, but they cut the number of cards in each to 10. Topps, meanwhile, found it worth their time to cover the part of the front of the card that identifies the player with a substance you could rub off. This meant that the vast majority of cards that got into the hands of yours truly were damaged the same day I bought them as a kid. The Ray Bourque card on the right is the Topps version.

The least attractive element of the front was the uninspired text inside of the puck. This is most likely because the designers at Topps wanted the area to look like the typical text found under rub-off spots - like on lottery tickets. None of this has detracted from its value with collectors.

Rookie cards included Ray Bourque, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Michel Goulet, Rod Langway, John Ogrodnick, Brian Propp, and Pete Peters.

1980-81 O-Pee-Chee at a Glance Back Checklist Record Breakers Leaders Team Leaders All-Star

Here's a checklist of the cards:

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