Western Canada Sports Collectors Convention

What a mouthful. I'll be calling it wcscc for short.

But yes! I went to wcscc on Saturday this weekend! I found out about it through one of the card shops I frequent who was hosting a table there and thought y'know what why not. It's relatively cheap ($35 for a ticket) and I like collectables and it gives me something to do. Then the everything kicked in.

So I was planning on going to this show anyway. It's at the Langley Events Center which is home to plenty of different teams with the Vancouver Giants probably being the most notable and it's kind of a bitch to get to. I'm like "oh well that's fine." then BOOM Alex Burrows is going to be there. Y'know, Alex Burrows. Former Vancouver Canuck that played for them from 2005 to 2016 Alex Burrows. The player on the team I quite literally grew up with and got me deep into hockey. He was going to be available for autographs and photos and I was once again like "oh it'll be too expensive" because I frequent cons I have actor friends, I know how it goes.

No. $25 for a professional photo. I caved... Like near instantly. So now I'm going to this collectables show that I'm really nervous because it's the first time I'd be going to a sports one and also I'm getting a photo with Alex Burrows. I became very annoying very quickly to anyone who talked to me leading up to this day I won't lie and my apologies for that.

So the day arrives and I wake up pretty early which is not fun when you woke up at 7am the day prior to go line up for some transit trading cards but I digress. It takes me about an hour to transit over to wcscc and I wanna get there around when they open at 10am. This is when the anxiety starts hitting. I get anxious for no reason all the time and for some reason I was worried about being an embarrassing sports collector going to the Sports Collector Convention. A 40 minute bus ride gives you a lot of time to think and also enough time for you to miss your stop.

I missed my stop.

Just by one though! And it wasn't too far so I just had a little more walking on the side of the road to do which was fine. Eventually I made it to the center!

I did get lost trying to find the entrance but I've never been here before so. Whatever. Getting inside was fine, lovely workers and very quick and easy. The hall itself was really big and I was instantly overwhelmed. I felt way out of my depth especially since I was alone but I just started doing what I usually do at cons and start looking around. The first couple of tables were cool, a lot of pokemon since that's a given at any collectable show, sports or not. I struck up a conversation with an older man running a table about collecting and how long he'd been collecting. He told me he's been going to sports shows for years and eventually does want to go to some non-sports shows but it's not something you really see much. I told him some stuff about my collecting over the years and how I work conventions and he was really nice. I hope to see him at FanExpo one year like he said he wants to do.

Next table I went to had plenty of cards but also a lot of memorabilia and trinkets. I fucking love trinkets, with a lot of my sports collection being items I can display alongside cards. The man running this table had some older merch and we started talking about old sports merch and how it's changed a lot over time. He was selling a puck for $15 and I told him I like to collect pucks though I haven't set up my display yet. He laughed and told me it was the last puck he had since he nearly sold all of them yesterday. Our conversation was about older hockey from the early 2000s and earlier and I talked to him about how people I know have been getting into it more recently. He told me he hopes that newer fans still find the time to enjoy the old stuff even while keeping up with the present. He was probably a little younger than my dad's age so it was a really nice conversation to have.

Disaster struck when I went to buy his puck however. Now, I don't have a debit card right now because of issues and I'm waiting to get a new one so I pay either in phone tap or my credit card. I don't get cash often with it only really happening when I get paid for cons and even then I get scared having a large amount of cash on me. These guys had a square reader set up but somehow didn't charge it the night before. This led me to helping them set up their square app so you could tap their phone to pay and even giving a step by step with my own phone. The owner made a joke that they should keep me around because I knew what I was doing and lowkey I would've if he was serious. Crisis averted, he sold me the puck for $5 even though I offered to pay full price. It's simple but I really like it a lot :)

I did some more wandering around and buying cards. The whole no cash thing did help me save money but it also made me insanely aware of how different these shows were to other shows I've been to. Conventions are always going to run different and I mainly run in large conventions with artist alleys. This was a thing pre-covid but especially post-covid it became very apparent that if you had any way to take non-cash payments, you would make a lot more money. Even collectable shows I've gone to that would be similar to wcscc have plenty of vendors with either a square machine or e-transfer information. There was an ATM but I opted not to use my credit card to take out cash and just looked at people who took my money. Most people were kind when I asked though one man was rude when I asked if he was cash only so like. Whatever. I did see some really funny things like White Auston Matthews funko pop and this silly poster.

I'll get more to what I got towards the end but I basically did my rounds, talked to people, bought a lot of cards, and killed time before the photo with Alex Burrows. Now, when the time came to line-up, oh my god was everything so confusing. They had two seperate lines for people who were getting photos and people who were getting autographs. There was no signage and everything was just through what employees told me but even then they weren't too certain on things. Through THREE seperate people, I was able to find out where the hell I had to go and chilled.

I won't bore you with too much details (hard) so I'll speed through and say anything important. First of all, the employee working was like "Okay when Alex comes out we're all gonna cheer and give him a big applause" like he was a kid who just won his first peewee game and we weren't literally there because we had paid to see him. Second of all, I think Alex Burrows thought I was like 16.

Okay okay. Maybe not that but younger than I actually am. I went up to him for the photo, said my hellos and chatted as he quite literally pulled me into his side even more than I was expecting. I'm like 5'3 and he's 6'1 so he did have to bend down a little but there was no reason for all that. I told him I grew up watching him and he said "oh you must've been really small when I played then." and I said "Well kinda, I'm 22". His eyes go wide and I get an "Oh!" before I'm ushered off.

After that I have to wait for them to print photos so I grab a bit of a late lunch (Triple Os I love you) and head outside. I ate for about 45 minutes while also just catching up on such when something crazy happened.

I'm sitting and eating when I hear yelling. "YOU TOOK PHOTOS OF LITTLE GIRLS!" okay what the fuck is going on. I turn to the side and right in front of the entrance I see two men shoving each other. The one yelling about the other guy being a pedophile smacks his phone onto the ground and kicks it away. All while still yelling about how he took photos of little girls. Another man shows up and starts also saying the same thing while everyone around just sort of watches. Eventually the two yelling got into a car and drove off and I don't know much of what happened after that but it was an event all right.

I grabbed my stuff and went back in to grab my photo and leave for the day. I've taken a few photos with celebrities and while I think they're always awkward no matter what (the only one I think I look normal is one with Neil Newbon) there's something about this photo that makes me laugh. Why do we look like that

Now for the main event. My goodies.

I got these from a little gacha machine. Enter 25 cents and you get some Canucks alumni. Two cards came out with each quarter though I don't know for sure if that was intentional. I got Mogilny on both my rolls though.

These where the cards I bought as singles. The shadowbox Quinn one being really cool and the Red Wings "GOALIE PULLS" literally having a pull out where you actually pull the goalie from the net. The Larkins are going to my boyfriend since those cards were on sale and the rest are for my beautiful collection :3

I also didn't want to leave without buying at least one box to crack packs from, I just didn't know what. I found a table that had a bunch of sealed boxes and a guy who told me "Any fan of the Canucks is a friend of mine." and we started talking a lot about hockey and cards. I ended up buying a hobby box for the 2021-22 Extended Series and I did get quite a few duds I do like what came out of it.

Overall I had a lot of fun and I hope to go to another one soon. This was a 3-Day event with the Sunday being free admission, I just went Saturday for Burrows. My only hope is that I'm able to go with someone instead of alone next time. Bossa Shows is hosting a couple other ones this month, however I'm really busy. There's also the Vancity Card Show in September but it's on the weekend I literally am in Edmonton which I'm totally not mad about.

I never truly believed the whole "Older fans and collectors look down on newer and younger fans" thing fully though I know it can happen. Going to this show has shown me that a lot of collectors are in it for the love of the game and even if you're new to the hobby, they'd gladly talk to you and share tips and guide you. I've been collecting since I was a kid but I know it can be a bit of a daunting thing to get into if you're new to it. I know for sure I'm always open to talking about it with others. So I hope this gives you a better look at it and maybe you even go to a show yourself one day.