About

Sports Cards Near Me is an independent Canadian card-shop directory built and maintained by Nathan Wiebe, a CPA who buys and sells cards himself. It lists 669 shops across 238 cities in 11 provinces and territories, compiled from public sources, reviewed by a person, and rebuilt daily.

Who runs this

My name is Nathan Wiebe. I'm a Chartered Professional Accountant in Alberta, and I collect, buy and sell sports cards. I've set up at the Edmonton Sports Expo a handful of times — I'm not a full-time show vendor, but I've stood on both sides of the table.

I built this directory because I kept hitting the same problem myself: there was no single, current, genuinely national list of Canadian card shops. Searching turned up American directories, dead listings, and shops that closed years ago. The accounting side of my work also means I spend a fair amount of time on the money end of this hobby — what a collection is worth, what grading actually costs, what a dealer owes at tax time — which is where a lot of the guides here come from. If you need more than a guide, that's Slab Savvy CPA, my accounting practice.

What's in the directory

669 card shops across 238 cities in 11 provinces and territories, plus 197 upcoming card shows with dates, venues and admission. 613 of the shops carry a public Google rating. It rebuilds every morning, so a shop that updates its hours or a show that confirms a date shows up here the next day rather than months later.

How listings are compiled

Listings come from public sources — a shop's own website and social pages, business directories, and submissions from readers — and a person reviews each one before it goes live. Generic sporting-goods stores, big-box retailers, and online-only sellers without a storefront are deliberately excluded: this is a directory of places you can actually walk into.

Ratings and review counts come from Google. Where a shop could not be matched confidently, its rating is left blank rather than guessed at — an empty field is honest, a wrong rating attached to a real business is not.

How fresh is this data?

The site rebuilds every day from the same spreadsheet the listings are compiled into, and every listing in it is reviewed by a person, not scraped and published unread. Corrections work the same way — they land at the next daily rebuild, same as everything else here.

Shops don't just quietly vanish when they close. Each one is confirmed individually before it's marked, and 29 are marked closed today: pulled out of every listing, ranking and map, with their page kept online and relabelled instead of deleted, so a search for the shop by name still finds something true. A further 1 has kept trading online after losing the storefront — those are labelled online-only rather than closed, because the two aren't the same thing.

What we don't yet publish is a "last verified" date on each individual listing — that data doesn't exist yet. We'd rather say so than let the daily rebuild imply a per-shop check that isn't there.

What "best" has to mean here

A shop is only described as best, top-rated, or a top pick if it has a Google rating backed by at least 20 reviews. 543 of the 669 listings currently clear that bar. Rankings use a weighted score rather than the raw average, so review volume counts as evidence — a shop rated 4.9 from hundreds of reviews ranks above one sitting at 5.0 from twenty. Shops below the bar are still listed and still findable; they just don't get crowned.

Independence

Being listed here is free, and no shop has paid to be listed, to rank higher, or to be described as best. Position in a ranking is not for sale — permanently, not just at the moment. What may be sold later is a Featured slot: a clearly-labelled paid box that sits beside the ranked list and cannot reorder it. Nothing of that kind is running yet, and when it is, it will be marked as a paid advertisement everywhere it appears. I run other card-hobby projects, which are linked in the footer and labelled as mine — none of them affect how shops are ranked on this site.

Corrections

If a listing here is wrong — a shop has moved, closed, changed hands, or should never have been listed — tell me and I'll fix it. Email slabsavvycpa@gmail.com, or use the suggest-a-store form — see "How fresh is this data?" above for when a fix actually goes live. Shop owners can also ask to have their listing removed entirely, no reason required.

Common questions

Who runs Sports Cards Near Me?

Nathan Wiebe, a Chartered Professional Accountant in Alberta who collects, buys and sells sports cards. The directory is independent and not owned by a shop, a grader, or a marketplace.

Where do the listings come from?

Public sources — shops' own websites and social pages, business directories, and reader submissions — compiled and then checked by a person before publishing. The directory currently lists 669 shops and rebuilds every morning, so hours, listings and show dates stay current.

How do you decide which shop is "best"?

A shop is only called best, top-rated, or a top pick if it carries a Google rating backed by at least 20 reviews — 543 of our 669 listings currently clear that bar. Ranking uses a weighted score, so a shop with hundreds of reviews outranks one with a perfect score from a handful. Shops below the bar are still listed; they just are not crowned. See how a city ranking looks.

Can a shop pay to rank higher?

No, and that is a permanent rule rather than a description of today. Rankings are computed from public Google ratings and review counts, and no shop can buy a position in them, a mention, or the word "best". Being listed is free and always will be. What may be sold later is a Featured slot — a clearly-labelled paid box that sits beside the ranked list without changing its order. None are sold today.

How do I get my shop or show listed, or fix a mistake?

Use the suggest-a-store or add-a-show forms — both are free and a person reviews every submission. For a correction to an existing listing, email slabsavvycpa@gmail.com and it will be fixed at the next daily rebuild. Suggest a store.

Is there a "last verified" date on each listing?

Not yet. The whole directory rebuilds daily and every closure is confirmed by a person, but we don't currently publish a per-listing verification date — that's a gap, and this is us saying so rather than implying a date we don't have.

Know a shop or show we're missing? Suggest a store — it's free, and a person reviews every submission.