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2000-01 Pacific Aurora

Packs per Box: 36
Cards per Pack: 6
Cards per Box: 212
Base Set Completion: 95.3% (143 of 150)
Duplicates: 51 (24%)
Packs with nothing but base: 18

The exact contents of the first pack scanned in and used to find insert odds:

#33 Steve Sullivan
#117 Alexei Kovalev
#63 Roberto Luongo
#116 Jaromir Jagr Striped Parallel
#18 Doug Gilmour
#87 Tim Connolly

First Pack Comments: Nifty striped parallel of a superstar player, but otherwise not a whole lot of excitement in this pack.
First Pack Rating: 6.0 / 10

Total: 17
Striped Parallel (random) -- 8: Doug Gilmour, Dominik Hasek, Alex Tanguay, Mark Recchi, Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, JS Abuin, Jaromir Jagr
Premiere Date Parallel (1:37) -- 1: Simon Gagne (46/50)
Authentic Autographs (random) -- 0
Championship Fever (4:37) -- 4: Brett Hull, Scott Gomez, Mark Messier, Brian Boucher
Championship Fever Silver (1:73) -- 0
Championship Fever Copper (1:181) -- 0
Championship Fever Blue (1:361) -- 0
Championship Fever LeClair Autos (#'d to 200) -- 0
Team Player Styrotechs (1:37) -- 1: Curtis Joesph(for the Maple Leafs)
Game Used Jerseys (random) --1: Steve Yzerman
Game Used Patches (random) -- 0
Dual Game Used Jerseys (random) -- 0
Canvas Creations (1:361) -- 0
Scouting Reports (2:37) -- 2: Patrik Stefan, Roberto Luongo

Box Rating: 8.5 / 10
Product Rating: 6.0 / 10

The first thing I noticed about Aurora is that it's ridiculously easy to cherrypick stuff out of it. And by "stuff" I don't just mean jerseys and GU. See, the inserts, jerseys, and base cards are all different thicknesses. Which means you can not only pick out jersey packs, but you can also pick out insert packs! The only things safe from cherrypicking are the autos and parallels. This makes it almost impossible to buy loose packs of Aurora and forces you onto the box scale

Why is that so bad? Well, the problem with Aurora is that there isn't anything guarenteed per pack to keep up interest. There are striped parallels along the way which are amusing, but are only about 1:4. Around HALF the packs in any given Aurora box will contain only base cards. That's great if you are buying by the pack ... except you can't do that because of its cherrypickability. And on a box scale, 18 packs of base cards are just painful.

I was also less than impressed to be left 7 cards short of the complete set and have 51 dupes sitting in front of me ...

While those negatives are pretty grand, Aurora does have its upsides. The base card design isn't that shabby, and the inserts are decently designed. Plus, each box would seem to have a good chance to get at least one jersey or auto or Canvas Creation or rarer Championship Parallel. At least this way, those who buy by the box do end up with a nice piece at the end.

My box wasn't too horrible at all. As I said, I was disappointed to be left 7 short of the set, but that little Yzerman jersey will somehow manage to get me through that problem. Simon Gagne was also a great Premiere Date Parallel to get - it could have been a lot worse! Unforetunately, other than that, the rest of the inserts were pretty pedestrian. A couple of Luongo's but that is about the biggest name present. The jersey definately saved this box!

If you're looking for a fun break, I think I would definately have to recommend 00-01 Paramount over Aurora ... Aurora has too many collation problems and too many base card packs to really be a fun break. It would appear that each box gets one nice card, but you have to do some major work getting through 18 boring packs to get to it.

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