Every long-running promotion has a first release, and for Kraft's fifteen-year run in hockey cards, that release was 1986-87 Kraft Drawings.
It set the template for everything that followed: a Canadian-focused checklist, a food-packaging delivery method, and a set built for kids to earn through their parents' grocery list rather than buy off a store shelf.
It also introduced a stylistic choice Kraft wouldn't repeat in later years, illustrated player artwork instead of photography.
Here's what collectors should know about the set that opened the whole Kraft hockey card era.
Unlike the flagship card companies of the era, Kraft Drawings limited its 81-card checklist to NHL teams based in Canada, a deliberate choice that matched its grocery-store distribution and Canadian target audience.
That regional focus is part of what makes the set feel distinct from anything Topps or O-Pee-Chee was producing at the same time, and it's a big part of why Canadian collectors still treat it as a genuine piece of hobby history.
Rather than licensing player photography, Kraft commissioned illustrated portraits for the set, with sports artists Jerry Hersh and Carlton McDiarmid responsible for the bulk of the 81 cards between them.
The hand-drawn style gives the set a different look and feel from nearly every other hockey release of the mid-1980s, which is worth knowing before assuming a Kraft Drawings card is simply a lower-budget photo card.
Kraft Drawings cards exist in two physical forms: a thinner white-backed version that came packaged in cellophane inside select Kraft products, and a thicker cardboard-backed version that was printed directly on Kraft Dinner boxes.
The full 81-card checklist was printed on every card back, which is a small but useful detail for identifying an unfamiliar example and confirming it belongs to this specific release rather than a later Kraft year.
The set carries rookie-year cards for several players who went on to significant NHL careers, most notably Patrick Roy, alongside Wendel Clark, Mike Vernon, Russ Courtnall, and Stephane Richer.
A Roy rookie from any 1986-87 release draws attention from collectors, and Kraft Drawings is a genuinely different, food-issue alternative to the more commonly chased O-Pee-Chee and Topps rookies from the same season.
Because the cardboard-backed version came attached to a Kraft Dinner box, condition on surviving examples varies enormously depending on how carefully a kid separated the card decades ago.
Rounded corners, small nicks along the cut edge, and slight off-center trims are common and expected on the box-attached version, while the cellophane-packaged white-back version tends to survive in noticeably better shape.
As the first entry in Kraft's fifteen-year hockey card run, this set is the natural starting point for anyone building a year-by-year Kraft collection rather than chasing a single favorite year.
It's also a useful benchmark for comparing how much the promotion's format changed over time, from a single illustrated card set in 1986-87 to the multi-product, multi-subset releases Kraft ran by the early 1990s.
Kraft moved away from illustrated artwork almost immediately after this debut release, shifting to photography for its later 1990s sets, which makes Kraft Drawings a genuinely one-off stylistic experiment within the promotion's fifteen-year run.
That makes the set easy to identify at a glance even without checking a number or checklist, since no other Kraft hockey release used hand-drawn player portraits as its primary visual approach.
Beyond checking the back color and thickness, comparing a listing photo against the full checklist printed on every card back is a reliable way to confirm a card genuinely belongs to this set rather than a later Kraft illustrated variant.
Weight and thickness are also useful physical checks in hand, since the cardboard-backed version attached to Kraft Dinner boxes feels noticeably heavier than the thinner cellophane-packaged white-back version.
81 cards, covering only Canadian NHL teams.
Sports artists Jerry Hersh and Carlton McDiarmid illustrated the majority of the cards.
One is a thinner white-backed cellophane-packaged card, the other a thicker cardboard-backed version attached to Kraft Dinner boxes.
Patrick Roy's rookie card is the headline chase card, alongside Wendel Clark and Mike Vernon.
A food-issue Roy rookie remains far more accessible than its O-Pee-Chee counterpart, making this a genuine entry point into vintage rookie collecting. A magnetic one-touch holder is worth reserving for whichever rookie card ends up being the centerpiece of your set.
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