'He Was Really Excited'

The thrill of the chase.

Each pack offering limitless possibilities.

Anyone who collected hockey cards as a kid (or adult) knows the feeling, the rush of getting your favourite player, an autograph, or a prized rookie.

But what if you opened a pack and pulled … Dad!

That’s exactly what happened for Joel Hanley and his four year-old son Hudson recently, all documented on Instagram on a wholesome reel that’s gone viral over the past couple of days.

“He started getting to like Pokemon cards and then, um, we kind of forgot them when we came back to Calgary,” Hanley shared Friday morning. “I kind of went on ChatGPT, Google, and I was just like, ‘Are there any of my cards  available in any of these packs?’ And then I saw that there was a Upper Deck series that was coming out in a week, so I thought, ‘Alright, I'm gonna get this and then we'll play a game, see if we can find my cards.’

“I told him, ‘We can open one pack a day.’ We ended up opening like 20 packs.”

Until the great reveal: a Joel Hanley Upper Deck card.

Just the sight of it sent young Hudson screaming down the hallway of the Hanley family home.

“It was so cool,” said the elder Hanley. “He loves hockey, he loves like watching the games and he's starting to play. 

“He always wanted to collect the Calgary cards, whenever we got a Calgary card he was super hyped, and then, obviously, when we got mine, he was really excited.”

Hanley has a series of reels on his Instagram page documenting the journey, including when Hudson pulled his second-favourite Flame, Adam Klapka.

But in its essence, it’s a story about that love of the game that infects all hockey fans from a young age. 

Collecting frozen moments - cards that get passed down through generations - hidden in attics and storage rooms across Canada and the world.

Hudson’s interest in collecting even brought Joel back to his own childhood.

“I wasn't a big card guy, but I ended up going back to my parents' house this summer and asked ‘Hey, do you have our old binders?’ And so we went down to the basement, we found them,” Hanley said. “There weren’t any crazy hits or gems, but there were a few Wayne Gretzky McDonald’s cards from 1994.

“I don't know if they're worth any money, but yeah, we still had our cards, so it was pretty cool to see them.”

That Joel Hanley card, though?

It’s priceless.