Panini America On Location: Scenes from Day One at the 2012 Toronto Spring Expo

TORONTO — Several familiar sights marked Friday’s first day at the 2012 Toronto Spring Expo inside the Panini America booth: Overflow crowds, unmatched buzz, hits aplenty, smiling faces and seemingly enough shredded silver foil to fill the entire Toronto International Centre.

Panini America’s three-man hockey hobby all-star team — Scott Prusha, Karvin Cheung and Chris Barr — opened the company’s booth Friday afternoon to waiting throngs of Canada’s most passionate collectors ready to participate in another showstopping wrapper-redemption program. Judging by the images that follow, those collectors were not disappointed.

The just-released 2011-12 Elite Hockey was by far the most popular product of the day and the hits just kept coming — not only from Elite, but from Panini America’s show-exclusive wrapper-redemption packs. The gallery below illustrates just some of the Friday highlights, and should set the tone for another thrilling day today.

Oh, and if you’re nowhere near Toronto but still want to participate in the 2012 Toronto Spring Expo wrapper redemption, be sure to check out iCollectPanini.com for details on how to do just that.

Enjoy the gallery and stay tuned to The Knight’s Lance all weekend long for additional coverage of the 2012 Toronto Spring Expo.