Hockey Gets a Timeout
We need to get something straight here… I really do love the hockey hobby.
The cards are cool.
The community is amazing, and, I dare say, the attitude in hockey is unlike any other trading card mindset.
People seem to be more laid-back, as a general rule.
There’s more focus on collecting as opposed to “investing,” and the community is extremely tight-knit.
All these things, and more, are what drew me to it many years ago, despite the fact that I have never officially played the game.
Heck, I look like a rhinoceros on ice skates whenever I lace them up and hit the ice.
There’s nothing graceful, nothing pretty, about me and ice skating.
Nonetheless, my love for the game and the hobby prevailed.
But lately, however, I’ve toned it all down, put the sport and the hobby on the back burner, focusing instead on my beloved baseball.
Why?
If I’m being totally honest, the hockey hobby has lost its collective mind over Connor Bedard.
People are so afraid of FOMO that they’re doing just idiotic things.
Boxes of Upper Deck flagship Series 2 (the one which could contain a Bedard Young Guns) are over $300 USD.
Cases of this product are approaching $4,000!
Remember, these are boxes that rarely touch the $125-$150 a box mark in normal years, which is every one but this year.
And all in pursuit of a Bedard Young Guns, which, by the way, they print thousands and thousands of the base YG of every player, Bedard included.
People are paying over $500 for a Young Gun that will undoubtedly become the highest population hockey card in history at PSA — and it won’t take long for this to happen.
Every stream I’m on the sentiment is the same.. “Slab it….,” “Slab that baby!”
Time after time.
It’s gotten to the point where a break without a shot at a Bedard rookie card is a break that has little or no chance of selling.
About three days after the product was released earlier this month, I had a guy reach out to me on social media and offer to sell me his pair of Bedard Young Guns (base, mind you).
He was asking $2,000 for the pair.
I just shook my head and passed.
He messaged me the following day and informed me he sold them, and that I’d “probably be sorry,” I passed on them the day before.
Here’s a hint — I’m not sorry.
The chase is exciting, there’s no doubt about it, and it has created a buzz that I can’t remember seeing before (and I’m old)!
But, it’s also created a market so out of whack that it’s going to take a while for the hockey hobby to get its bearings back.
So, I’m stepping back from hockey until it comes to its senses.
I’ll miss it, but I know it’ll find its way once again.
And when it does, I’ll be ready.
But as of right now, as I pen this column, there are stacks of Bowman Chrome 1st to my left waiting to be scanned and listed.
And you know what…. I love it.