"[The fans] are very aware of the impact that their legends have had on the game there," Phillips said. "I've even seen imagery of people, at believe it or not, card shows because there are even card shows there that happened on weekends, of people walking around in vintage jerseys of former NHL players that are from the region."
But whether it's North America or Europe, Upper Deck's commitment remains to ensure that card collecting continues to flourish.
"We feel a very strong responsibility to now make sure we keep those new collectors and those now reenergized lapse collectors engaged," Phillips said.
"We also are doing quite a bit of [virtual reality] digital platforms. We have a platform called 'Upper Deck e-Pack', where collectors, if they can't get physical boxes and packs of cards at their local hobby shop, they can go on Upper Deck e-Pack and have the same exact experience of opening up a physical pack of cards on their phone, on their tablet, on their computer with the same inserts, the same cards per pack, the same content as they would (get in) a physical pack. So they can actually have that experience regardless of where they are."
For European hockey fans, the virtual and traditional experience is beginning to grow into even more of a global pastime, which will only increase with the opening of the 2022-23 NHL season.
"We're really, really seeing tremendous growth particularly in places like the Czech Republic," Phillips said. "We've always had a pretty good collector base in Finland and Sweden and in Germany as well. They continue to grow, but the leader of the pack right now is absolutely the Czech Republic.
"Fortunately for us, there are a number of stops on the Global Series Tour. We're engaging with our partners there to get out and participate and engage with collectors and stoke that passion for collecting."
The surge in collectors globally figures to continue, especially as passion for the sport increases.
"As interest in the category grows and interest in the sport has grown, we've seen hockey trading cards grow year over year in places where we had never seen that before.," Phillip said. "We'll continue, and personally for me as the head of sales, I have been concentrating on that more than most things because I see it as such a tremendous opportunity to create and grow new collector bases and further interest in the game."