Gretzky - Lemieux - Roy - Orr - Yzerman - Ovechkin - MacKinnon - Brodeur - Crosby - McDavid - Bedard
About us:
Canadian Hockey Cards has been on the web since 1996. However our collecting and dealing goes back even farther. 1970 is where it started when Esso released their Power Player's collection. Every kid in school was collecting them. That started the interest in hockey cards in the years that followed.
We started doing card shows in the
Vancouver area in 1990, and when the internet was accessible in 1994,
trading and selling online began.
Our first website was
launched in 1996. We've specialized in Canadian issues for over 25
years and aim to keep McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire,
and Upper Deck Young Guns cards in stock. See "our
story" for our full history.
Hockey Card History:
Hockey cards have been around since 1879, predating baseball and football cards in Canada. The first vintage cards appeared as illustrated drawings of "Ice Hockey" or "Eishockey." By 1910-1913, cigarette packs included the first named-player cards (C-55, C-56, C-57), featuring stars like Georges Vezina, Fred Cyclone Taylor, and Art Ross.
During World War I, hockey cards paused. Post-war, Victoria and Vancouver led the revival, followed by sets in Western Canada and the U.S. In 1923, the first NHL set (William-Patterson) introduced Howie Morenz, Aurele Joliat, and King Clancy.
By the late 1920s, food and candy companies joined the market. O-Pee-Chee became dominant, producing cards until World War II halted production. Notable names like Eddie Shore, Charlie Conacher, Ace Bailey, Turk Broda, Toe Blake, Elmer Lach, and Syl Apps graced these cards.
Hockey cards like this did not reappear until 1951 when Parkhurst Products was the lone issuer for the next three years. Topps and O-Pee-Chee rejoined the hockey card promotions, and again due to having more interesting and colourful cards which became more popular, Parkhurst backed out of hockey card production in 1964. By 1968 Topps and O-Pee-Chee were the dominant supplier of hockey cards in North America. Topps supplied the U.S. market while O-Pee-Chee supplied cards across Canada. O-Pee-Chee continued as a major supplier of hockey cards until 1995 when they announced they were discontinuing production and distribution and handed over the responsibility to Topps. Many issues faced Topps such as competition from other brands, and an overall destruction of the hobby market due to overproduction in the early 1990's by all brands. Some of the other brands that appeared in 1990 were primarily Upper Deck, Pro Set and Score. Poor quality, superior competition, and a host of card errors caused Pro Set to back out by 1993. Of the new brands, Upper Deck achieved the most success with their white stock paper and interesting photography. Other brands came and went through the 1990's, but Upper Deck was the one brand that remained constant. See the entire story
