Beyond the Rink: How One Creative Director’s Childhood Hockey Obsession Evolved Into a High-Stakes Trading Card Empire

Main Facts: The Intersection of Advertising, Nostalgia, and Modern Collecting

For Grant Cleland, creative director at Toronto-based full-service agency Fuse Create, the worlds of high-level brand strategy and sports memorabilia collecting share a surprising amount of DNA. Both require an acute eye for design, an understanding of cultural zeitgeists, meticulous tracking of metrics, and an appreciation for the thrill of the hunt.

While Cleland spends his professional hours steering creative narratives in the fast-paced Canadian advertising landscape, his off-the-clock hours are dedicated to a lifelong passion: sports card collecting. What began on the frozen ponds and local rinks of Port Elgin, Ontario, as a childhood rite of passage has blossomed into a curated, highly valued collection of roughly 800 cards—including 389 professionally graded pieces—and a deep-seated involvement in North America’s booming sports memorabilia ecosystem.

Cleland’s story is part of a broader cultural phenomenon. In recent years, the sports card hobby has undergone a massive renaissance, transitioning from a nostalgic childhood pastime into a sophisticated, multi-million-dollar alternative asset class. Driven by pandemic-era lockdowns, increased digital accessibility, and mainstream pop culture exposure like Netflix’s King of Collectibles, the market has experienced an unprecedented influx of new energy, capital, and participants.

Yet, for industry veterans like Cleland, the heartbeat of the hobby remains unchanged. It is a complex, multi-faceted chemistry of history, design, investing, and pure sports fandom.

Chronology: From Port Elgin Ponds to Toronto Boardrooms

The Early Years: Rinks, Farms, and First Packs

Growing up in Port Elgin, a small community in Southwestern Ontario, hockey wasn’t merely an extracurricular activity for Cleland; it was foundational to the local social fabric.

"Playing hockey was simply part of the culture," Cleland recalls.

Naturally competitive, he laced up his first pair of skates around the age of five. Along the way, he was coached by former professional players, honing a fierce competitive streak that would eventually translate into a high-octane career in the creative agency world. He played competitively all the way through high school, immersed in a world of locker room banter, early morning practices, and post-game triumphs.

However, as adolescence gave way to the realities of adulthood, Cleland recognized that a professional hockey career was not in his future. But while he hung up his competitive skates, he refused to let go of one of the most enduring traditions of his youth: collecting sports trading cards.

Because pocket money was scarce in his household, Cleland learned the value of a dollar early on. He earned cash for cards by taking on extra chores around his family’s beef farm. By the time he turned 14, he secured a full-time summer job working on the grounds crew at the Saugeen Golf Club. Every hard-earned dollar he could spare went toward local hobby shops, where he traded cards with schoolmates and teammates—expanding his horizons beyond hockey into the world of baseball cards as well.

The Evolution of a Collection

As Cleland grew older, entered university, and launched his professional career in advertising, his collection evolved. At its peak, his personal archive swelled to more than 2,000 cards.

Realizing that quality trumped sheer quantity, Cleland eventually streamlined his hoard. He narrowed his collection down to about 800 carefully chosen pieces. Among them, nearly half (389) are "graded" cards—items that have been authenticated, encapsulated, and assigned a numerical condition score by professional grading authorities like PSA or BGS, cementing their long-term value and preservation.

Today, Cleland’s engagement with the hobby extends far beyond quiet curation. He actively participates in the live market, attending roughly 20 events a year. These range from massive, multi-day showcases like the Sport Card & Memorabilia Expos held across Canada to intimate player-signing events at local businesses.

Supporting Data: Inside the Numbers of Modern Collecting

The economics of sports card collecting have undergone a seismic shift over the last decade. What was once viewed as a niche hobby populated by basement hobbyists has morphed into a high-stakes ecosystem characterized by algorithm-driven marketplaces, fractional ownership, and high-end institutional investments.

The Pandemic Boom and Market Maturation

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a massive accelerant for the industry. Stuck at home with disposable income and a collective yearning for childhood nostalgia, millions of adults rediscovered their old binders or dove headfirst into opening hobby boxes. Shows sold out instantly, secondary market prices skyrocketed, and mainstream media platforms took notice, further fueling the fire.

According to industry estimates, the global sports trading card market—valued in the billions—continues to expand rapidly, projected by various market research firms to more than double over the next decade.

For Cleland, this influx of new participants has dramatically altered the landscape.

"At the heart, collecting hasn’t changed for the core audience: finding cards that connect you to the game and its history," Cleland notes. "What has changed is the economics around it. Parts of the hobby now resemble a casino, where booms, busts, and resale value can matter more than the cards themselves. But understanding when to buy, grade, hold, and sell adds another interesting dimension."

No Offseason for Collectors

Unlike traditional professional sports leagues, which feature distinct regular seasons, playoffs, and lengthy offseasons, the trading card market never sleeps. Card manufacturers operate on a relentless release calendar.

New products hit shelves year-round. These include traditional flagship sets, high-end luxury products, and real-time offerings like Topps Now—cards that are printed on demand within hours of a historic or memorable sports moment occurring on the field. Major card makers often maintain half a dozen or more distinct product lines dedicated to a single sport simultaneously, creating an endless cycle of product drops, chase cards, and market fluctuations.

Financial Tracking and Portfolio Management

Given the financial stakes involved in modern collecting, casual organization is no longer sufficient for serious hobbyists. Cleland approaches his collection with the analytical rigor of a seasoned brand strategist.

Rather than relying on memory or rough estimates, he maintains a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute digital ledger.

"I have a spreadsheet of everything I’ve spent, everything I bought, all my grading fees, and the value of the cards," Cleland explains. "You have to keep track, ’cause it adds up."

Crown Jewels of the Collection

Cleland’s meticulous tracking and discerning eye have helped him secure some truly remarkable pieces. Two standout cards anchor his current collection:

1. The Modern Holy Grail: A rare "one-of-one" Texas Rangers Wyatt Langford SuperFractor—the absolute pinnacle of scarcity for a modern parallel card—which Cleland successfully pulled directly from a hobby box earlier this year.
2. The Vintage Masterpiece: A 1994–95 Upper Deck "Be a Player" Wayne Gretzky card featuring an on-card autograph. This piece holds profound historical significance, originating from the very first year the legendary hockey icon contributed pack-inserted signatures to the market.

Beyond individual high-value pulls, Cleland pursues creative thematic goals. Rather than collecting at random, he is currently working on a specialized vertical: acquiring rookie cards of Hockey Hall of Famers and having them autographed directly by the players. This personal project creates a modern, vintage-infused reflection of the pack-inserted autograph trend that defines contemporary card collecting.

Official Perspectives: The Creative Mind Meets the Collector’s Market

The parallels between Cleland’s day job at Fuse Create and his passion for sports cards are striking. In advertising, professionals must decode cultural signals, anticipate consumer behavior, and craft narratives that resonate deeply on an emotional level. Collecting requires an identical psychological toolkit.

When asked to define the underlying appeal of the hobby, Cleland points to its unique convergence of disparate disciplines.

"It’s just such a bizarre chemistry of things," Cleland says. "It’s a mix of culture, history, design, investing, gambling, treasure hunting. It’s all that stuff, which makes it fun."

This multi-dimensional nature is precisely why the hobby has successfully retained its grip on adults working in high-pressure creative industries. While accountants, tech founders, and creative directors use golf, cooking, or endurance sports to unwind, collectors like Cleland find solace and stimulation in the tactile nature of cardboard, the aesthetic brilliance of foil-stamped designs, and the historical narratives etched into every piece.

Implications: What the Hobby Says About Modern Work and Culture

The thriving intersection of professionals and alternative asset hobbies like card collecting offers a fascinating lens through which to view modern work-life balance and cultural consumption.

1. The Need for Tangible Connection in a Digital World

In an era where much of professional life—especially in advertising, tech, and media—is entirely digitized, intangible, and fleeting, hobbies like card collecting offer a powerful antidote. Holding a physical piece of cardboard inscribed with the likeness of Wayne Gretzky or a rising MLB star provides a tangible connection to the physical world, sports history, and shared human memory. It is an analog refuge in a hyper-digital epoch.

2. The Gamification of Leisure

The transformation of collecting into a pseudo-financial market highlights a broader cultural trend: the gamification of everyday life and leisure. From cryptocurrency and stock trading apps to sneaker reselling and high-end card grading, modern consumers increasingly seek hobbies that offer not just emotional fulfillment, but a speculative economic dimension. For strategic thinkers like Cleland, analyzing market trends, assessing risk, and executing calculated buys and sells satisfies a cognitive itch that traditional leisure activities often fail to scratch.

3. Cultivating Deepened Community Networks

While digital platforms like eBay, Instagram, and specialized Discord servers have revolutionized how collectors buy and sell, the physical infrastructure of the hobby remains remarkably robust. Trade nights, local card shops, and massive conventions provide vital spaces for human connection. In a post-pandemic world characterized by remote work and digital isolation, these physical touchpoints offer a vital sense of community rooted in shared passion.

For Grant Cleland, whether he is building a brand campaign in a Toronto boardroom or sorting through graded slabs at a national sports memorabilia expo, the underlying mission remains the same: telling a compelling story, honoring history, and engaging deeply with culture. And as long as athletes continue to make history on the field, the card companies will print, the markets will fluctuate, and Cleland will be right there tracking every movement—spreadsheet in hand, ready for the next great pull.