The Ice Box closing

[dudical]

I don't have the link handy, but I remember reading that The Ice Box in Barrie Ontario is closing/closed?

Sad news.

 

[99goals]

Yup. True.

 

[allstarcollectors]

Trust all is okay with Wayne. Sad to see another one close.

 

[quincy]

It's a complex situation, and Wayne intimated that this was on the horizon about a year ago.

Still, I'm with the crowd hear: sad to see another go.

 

[creasecollector]

Sad to see it go.

 

[cburt]

Sad indeed. I wonder what happened? Seemed like a well-organized shop, and one people would drive great distances to get to.

 

[Leafsfan1967]

Sad indeed. I wonder what happened? Seemed like a well-organized shop, and one people would drive great distances to get to.

Wayne is a good guy, no doubt. So sad to lose another long time B+M store. With Ebay, and COMC making things cheap, and easy for buyers, and sellers. brick, and mortar stores are gonna continue to have a tough go of it in the market now-a-days. Pretty much the majority of card hobbyists today are somewhat intrigued by the whole group break influx the past couple years, it will be almost impossible to keep stores open now. You can thank Upper Deck for some of their struggles with the e-pack they introduced. Talk about flipping long-time stort owners the bird with their e-pack BS. :| Also, Wayne was located in a mall, which has a huge rent cost, couldn't have helped at all. Wayne worked his tail off day in, and day out keeping the doors of his store open for a long time, he even sets up at the Barrie Colts games. Nobody tried harder to keep it open than him. I have no doubt in my mind that UD will keep it going, until every last store is forced to close. No loyalty to those that have supported them since 1989. :waiting:

 

[tiger tiger]

Wayne is a good guy, no doubt. So sad to lose another long time B+M store. With Ebay, and COMC making things cheap, and easy for buyers, and sellers. brick, and mortar stores are gonna continue to have a tough go of it in the market now-a-days. Pretty much the majority of card hobbyists today are somewhat intrigued by the whole group break influx the past couple years, it will be almost impossible to keep stores open now. You can thank Upper Deck for some of their struggles with the e-pack they introduced. Talk about flipping long-time store owners the bird with their e-pack BS. :| Also, Wayne was located in a mall, which has a huge rent cost, couldn't have helped at all. Wayne worked his tail off day in, and day out keeping the doors of his store open for a long time, he even sets up at the Barrie Colts games. Nobody tried harder to keep it open than him. I have no doubt in my mind that UD will keep it going, until every last store is forced to close. No loyalty to those that have supported them since 1989. :waiting:

This.

As soon as I heard that UD was going to sell hobby boxes online and epacks were coming, I knew the dealer days were over. Especially B+M stores, and eventually even ebay online stores will be tough.

Sad to hear, but it's the sign of the times.

 

[eishelges]

Sad to hear! I do also think that this e-pack releases ruined local shops...never bought anything on e-pack site and I never will...love it to go into an local shop and meet other cardboard nerds. It's an great experience and I paid some extra on boxes or plastics for that. It's not a positive development at all...maybe you can not blaim upper deck alone for that but they do nothing for the "back" of that hobby. They destroy peoples business who helped them to get such big as they are now (with all negatives!)
To run a cardshop nowadays would mean to install group breaks regularly (also because of high priced boxes) like CnC does f.e. That fact makes it easier for them to have a cardshop too where people can meet and talk/trade buy singles etc...

I am really sentimental about that...

 

[27Leafs27]

Sad to hear that Wayne had to close up shop. He is a stand up guy for sure. I remember back to the early days when he took over from a fellow named Dan who had a store at Essa Road and Gowan. I guess I never bought a whole lot of product from him but I used to pop in for supplies and just to shoot the breeze about the hobby. The intangible thing about bricks and mortar shops is the personal interaction you get from shop owners and fellow collectors. I enjoy just browsing through the old programs, magazines etc.
Here is wishing Wayne all the best moving forward.
Dan.

 

[pwag31]

Sad to hear that Wayne had to close up shop. He is a stand up guy for sure. I remember back to the early days when he took over from a fellow named Dan who had a store at Essa Road and Gowan. I guess I never bought a whole lot of product from him but I used to pop in for supplies and just to shoot the breeze about the hobby. The intangible thing about bricks and mortar shops is the personal interaction you get from shop owners and fellow collectors. I enjoy just browsing through the old programs, magazines etc.
Here is wishing Wayne all the best moving forward.
Dan.

This is the only thing that keeps me interested in the hobby. Spend an hour having a coffee and BS'ing with the owner and other collectors. It is my Saturday morning ritual and gives me something to look forward to every week. You don't get that on Epack.

 

[Boston12]

Sucks anytime a card shop closes. I don’t know anything about this particular shop, it’s just a sign of the times. Look at the success of Amazon and all the stores they have put out of business. They figured out what the consumer wants and capitalized on it. This trend will continue unfortunately. I’ll pay a 10-15% premium to support the local shop but outside of that I’m buying online. Forget it once the next generation comes along they won’t even know physical stores existed.

 

[hawkeenut]

It is sad to see any store close, but even sadder when we see a friend or acquaintance go through it. The onlining stuff is killing all businesses. The banks are closing up because they want everyone to bank on line. I am a dinosaur and prefer to deal face to face, at least then you can see when they roll their eyes.

Wayne is a great guy and a straight shooter. I hope you land on your feet running, Sir!!

 

[creasecollector]

This.

As soon as I heard that UD was going to sell hobby boxes online and epacks were coming, I knew the dealer days were over. Especially B+M stores, and eventually even ebay online stores will be tough.

Sad to hear, but it's the sign of the times.

It's very sad to see.

I sometimes cringe when I see people tweet about hitting "The Red Glow" for their Upper Deck ePack hits and seeing UD Retweet it and all that, keeping the ongoing trend going.

I mean, good for the collector and all of that for their cool hits, but it's almost like UD is just "celebrating" another box/pack sale that could have belonged to an LCS owner, but went straight to them instead. That stuff really has crushed B&M stores.

Sure, UD might add some hobby box exclusives here and there, but that's not enough. Then they turn around and add a bunch of ePack exclusive cards, so the whole "Support your LCS and buy hobby!" by UD is just playing nice while covering up the sad truth. The almighty dollar wins again.

 

[TMLFan3]

Sorry to say but epack is the future of the hobby and here to stay. Now if Topps and Panini adopt the same model, stores will be no more

 

[bwmechtech]

I may be old fashioned, but if I buy a box of cards, I want all the cards! They charge the same price as retail, plus it costs a bundle to have them shipped to me, and I only get to keep the "hits"?. It also hurts the B&M stores where many of us go to talk sports and hobby. Why pay more for less?

 

[g-force]

I may be old fashioned, but if I buy a box of cards, I want all the cards! They charge the same price as retail, plus it costs a bundle to have them shipped to me, and I only get to keep the "hits"?. It also hurts the B&M stores where many of us go to talk sports and hobby. Why pay more for less?

I agree, I don't collect computer images, I collect cards. I refuse to support e-pack.

 

[quincy]

I refuse to support e-pack.

ePack, in a sense, has made my collecting life easier:
Is this product going to end up on ePack? It is? I'm not buying it.

Earlier this year, UD formally came clean on the entertainment side, stating on the promo sheet for Black Panther (BAAAAD product) that every UDE release was ePack eligible. That's great! Now I don't have to pay any attention (or money) WHATSOEVER to UD entertainment offerings any longer!

 

[KillerCanuck]

So sad to hear about Wayne. Many yrs ago I purchased some cards from him. I wonder why are there are so many nhl boxes on epack but baseball zero. I do support local dealers. But here in Finland I find epacks easier to buy. In mid-90´s we had many cardshops in Finland and now it´s just zero very sad. Some sellers here have so called open house where we could visit a dealer at his home or 2-3 cardshows a year. This is frustrating. I always love going to shops or shows meeting people face to face with some chats. On internet I kinda feel uncomfortable because they only sell premium cards . To buy base cards what missed is quite hard. Sellers have no time to search hundreds thousands cards in stock. Therefore I loved visiting shops with my wanted list. I loved to search my cards from thousands thousands cards..It can take much more time but it was fun!

 

[coderedxm]

Sad to agree with everyone above, E-Pack is the latest & greatest trend in the hobby, it's an insanely genius idea by Upperdeck. Charge people to purchase Packs (at higher than MSRP pricing) charge them for shipping and make it so easy that the true addicts/hobbyist can sit there on the phone/laptop and purchase pack/box/case one after another... all to just flood the market with mass produced rookies/inserts.
Unfortunately, it's coming to a huge loss to the Local Shops and so called Money Pits.
I tried out E-Pack for a few Months and found to be slow, not very user-friendly and most users/members overvalued their MVP Inserts like they were PSA 9 Gretzky RCs...slight overstatement

Nonetheless, it's sad the big dogs are coming out on top once again as the guys who just want to profitable hobby shop are swept off to the side. After all the years of making UD what they are but selling their un-original, over priced garbage product.
I know it goes both ways, without UD they wouldn't have their shop... but it just sucks UD is showing their true loyalty to their sellers by using this tactic.