In The Game Goes The Extra Mile High To Honor Colorado's Patrick Roy In The 2002-03 Parkhurst Set

Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche, a player many consider one of the greatest, if not thee greatest goalie in NHL history, recently reached another in a long line of career milestones. On January 20, 2003, he became the first goalie in NHL history to play his 1,000th career game. Roy put on a show to mark the occasion, stopping 29 of 30 shots in an overtime tie versus Dallas.

To commemorate Roy's achievement, In the Game has added one card to their "Milestones" game-used memorabilia insert set in 2002-03 Parkhurst. Originally planned as a 10-card set celebrating recent significant accomplishments of NHL stars, the addition of the Roy card brings the set size to 11. Thirty-three of this special Roy card will be inserted in 2002-03 Parkhurst since he has worn uniform number 33 throughout his illustrious career. A checklist of all 11 Milestones cards is listed below.

"It was imperative to produce this card for the Milestones set in Parkhurst," says Dr. Brian Price, President of In The Game, Inc. "There was a lot of excitement over Patrick reaching the 1,000-game mark and we didn't want our collectors to wait months before having a chance to add this special card to their collection."

Officials at In the Game had been monitoring Roy's progress from the beginning of the season confident that, barring injury, he would reach the 1,000-game plateau. Roy began the year with 966 career games. Once the mark was reached, the company acted quickly.

"Normally, it takes weeks or even months to create a card, taking it through all the necessary steps from conception to the finished product," says Price. "However, we felt this was such a significant achievement that we spared no effort to include it in the Milestones set, one of our most popular annual insert sets. I'm grateful to our suppliers who worked under severe time constraints to produce it in timely fashion, everyone from the printing stage to the final cut. It is worth the investment."

The 2002-03 Parkhurst set is scheduled for release on February 27. Building on a heritage and tradition that dates back to 1951-52 when Parkhurst became the first company to produce a modern-era mainstream hockey card set, the new Parkhurst set is geared towards true hockey fans. It will consist of a 250-card base set including a subset of 50 short-printed rookie cards, each numbered to 500. Special Bronze, Silver, and Gold parallel versions of the base cards will also be available.

Including the 11-card Milestones set, Parkhurst offers no fewer than an amazing 280 different game-used memorabilia insert cards in 13 attractive insert sets. In addition to Patrick Roy, collectors will also find memorabilia inserts of superstars like Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Martin Brodeur and Dany Heatley. In the Game is also the only card manufacturer to offer autographed Mario Lemieux cards in 2002-03. Best of all, the stated production run for every game-used memorabilia card will be less than 100 ensuring collectibility and value.

Other highlights in 2002-03 Parkhurst include a 150-card reprint set featuring many of the most popular cards from the original run of Parkhurst sets from 1951-52 to 1963-64. The He Shoots, He Scores decoy/redemption points program helps prevent pack searching while rewarding collectors who accumulate enough "points" with special memorabilia cards not found in packs.

In the Game, Inc. has produced the Be A Player brands of hockey trading cards since 1998-99. The company has 10 hockey card products scheduled for release in 2002-03. In addition to Parkhurst, that lineup includes First Edition (released August 21); the Memorabilia Series (released November 21), All-Star Edition (released on January 17), Between the Pipes (scheduled for release February 18), In the Game-Used (scheduled for March release), Parkie Retro (scheduled for April release), Signature Series (scheduled for April release), Ultimate Memorabilia 3rd Edition (scheduled for May release), and Original-Six (release TBA).