Thursday, April 17, 2008

Why Sid has hurt the hobby

Let me get this out there first--I'm not a fan of Sidney Crosby. Not at all. To say I can't stand him would be accurate, but that needs some clarification.

I don't like that he has been deemed The Chosen One, the carrier of the Ring, the "it" guy. He has been on more Beckett covers already than anyone else (probably, I haven't counted), and I even think there was one month where he occupied 15 of the 20 cards on their Hot List. People can't get enough of him. Except for me.

But my personal distaste is besides the point.

What I can prove is that his cards are ridiculously priced. Now that Ovechkin has locked up a couple of trophies for his performance this season, you can include him in the high price list. So for now on I'll refer to them collectively as SidOvi.

The problem is that with all the hype came people who had never collected hockey before. If they were all kids, great. Kids need a role model, and the hobby can always use new recruits who can grow in the hobby. Unfortunately it was people who saw what I like to call Lebron Dollars.

Yes, in came the prospectors, like this was the California Gold Rush. Only we're not doing environmental harm or driving out the Native Americans, we're driving the hobby in the wrong direction all to the detriment of The Hobby.

In a brilliant marketing and product development move, Upper Deck released 2005-06 The Cup. It was hockey's Exquisite, and you'd find no shortage of eBay sellers who would spam titles with the "E" word. UD claimed it was the most expensive product yet released, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

SidOvi fever carried the product quite strongly. While non-SidOvi cards sold quite well, it was the draw of pulling one of the /99 auto patch rookie cards that really drew in the collectors and prospectors. Months earlier Beckett lauded the Nash Premier RC for breaking the $1k mark, then off the bat Crosbys were selling for ten times that. And there were 99 made!

That's unfortunately a precedent that is so high up there, the let down of not pulling one is quite a tumble. When you see a card consistently selling for that much, the ceiling of card collectibility rises a lot, but so does the floor.

Time and time again I witnessed people breaking boxes from 05-06 hockey products. "I didn't pull a Crosby, oh well." They seem slighted when they don't get even a Sid base card. It doesn't matter that they pulled a nice patch or jersey card. "No Sid, but at least I got a Stajan base for my collection." Why at least? It's not good enough to even get one card closer to a player collector's goal.

Unless that goal is to only pull a SidOvi card.

As a corollary to the fever, I remember when Sid hurt his ankle earlier this season. People began asking about the effect on his card prices, should they sell, wait it out then sell, etc. Then there were several people wanting to know if the hobby would take a turn for the worse. See. At least I'm not the only one to see his effect.

And it's a bad one.

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