As a kid, I used to love collecting baseball and hockey cards. To my dismay, baseball cards were on the way out when I was at my peak of collecting them in the early 2000’s. I used to go into my neighborhood shop, Wayne’s World in Pickering, Ontario, to try to find the latest and greatest cards. I would typically grab packs and possibly the odd blaster box, as I would focus on collecting the current day stars. Wayne would love when I came in the store, because he probably knew that it wouldn’t be long before the hobby became obsolete.

As I grew older, I moved away from cards. It seemed like everyone else that still was collecting them also did this as well. I don’t remember hearing a peep about sports cards for quite a while after this. During the Covid outbreak of 2020, sports cards randomly became super popular again. I guess people were looking for something to do with all their free time?

My girlfriend and I decided to get back into it this year for a couple of reasons. For one, we’re both avid sports fans and collectors, and it helped her learn some of player names. Secondly, her cousin is Corbin Carroll, the NL Rookie of the Year award winner for this year.  Having a family connection means that its become fun to collect as many cards of his as we can. We have around 30 so far, including this beauty that we recently picked up:

Ebay.ca

Carroll’s cards are particularly valuable right now because they’re all official Topps rookie cards. Rookie cards tend to have more value than any other kind of card. Not that we’re looking to sell any of his; we like his cards strictly for our collection’s sake. We even sent him some to have autographed, which will be cool to look back on.

My girlfriend and I have recently even started to go to card shows. This past weekend was British Columbia’s biggest show, located at the Langley Events Centre. We waltzed in there yesterday and were utterly amazed. There was at least 100 different vendors, including former and current NHL players signing autographs.

I love collecting cards because of how fun the chase is. Is it practical? No of course not. I don’t want to know how much money we’ve spent on cards so far. However, jumping around town to vendors and card shows is a fun way to spend an afternoon. The excitement at finding some of your favourite players, or rare cards, is a rush that I didn’t realize I missed.