What Is an In The Game (ITG) Card?

In The Game (almost always shortened to ITG) was an independent Canadian trading card company founded by Dr. Brian Price in 1998, built entirely around hockey. Unlike Upper Deck, ITG was never one of the sport's dominant licensed manufacturers — it operated in a narrower lane, ran an NHLPA license for only about six years, and then spent its final decade producing cards without any NHL or NHLPA tie-in at all. The company shut down in 2014, and the ITG name and back catalog were acquired by Leaf Trading Cards, which still uses "ITG" as a product label on some modern hockey releases.

• 1998-2005: NHLPA-licensed era.ITG entered the hobby with the NHLPA's "Be A Player" brand, which guaranteed one certified autograph per pack — an aggressive hit rate for the time. During this stretch ITG cards could legally show player likenesses and, on some lines, team-related marks under the players'-association license.
• 2005-2014: unlicensed era. The NHLPA ended its deal with ITG following the 2004-05 NHL lockout. ITG kept making hockey cards afterward — including sets built around individual player deals, retired legends, and a Hockey Canada license covering national-team players — but without a blanket NHL or NHLPA license. Products from this stretch (such as Heroes and Prospects) mix current prospects with retired stars and often use airbrushed or logo-free jerseys the same way Leaf's unlicensed products do.
• 2014-present: Leaf-owned revival. ITG closed in 2014 and Leaf Trading Cards bought the name. Leaf has since reissued ITG-branded hockey products — most visibly Leaf ITG Heroes & Prospects— as an autograph- and relic-heavy set-builder/hit-hybrid line under Leaf's ownership, not the original company.

• Be A Player.ITG's NHLPA-licensed flagship from 1998-2005, notable for putting a certified autograph in every pack at a time when that was unusual outside high-end boxes. ITG inherited the name from Upper Deck, which launched it in 1994-95 before Pinnacle briefly held the license — see What Is an Upper Deck Be A Player Card? for that earlier era.
• Heroes and Prospects.ITG's longest-running hockey product, pairing signed prospects and junior/CHL standouts with retired-legend autographs and relics in the same checklist — a format Leaf has continued under its own ownership.
• Franchise and history-focused releases.ITG leaned on nostalgia products covering hockey history and retired greats, a niche that didn't require a current NHL license to produce.

• Check the year against the license era. A pre-2005 ITG card was made under a real NHLPA license; a post-2005 ITG card was not — that distinction affects how a card is catalogued and, for some sets, whether team logos appear at all.
• "ITG" on a modern pack means Leaf, not the original company. Anything released after 2014 carrying the ITG name is a Leaf product using a licensed-back brand, the same way a modern Skybox release belongs to a different owner than the original company.
• Autograph authentication. As with any certified-autograph product, confirm the on-card signature is certified by the issuing company (ITG-era or Leaf-era) rather than a redemption or aftermarket add-on.
• Price off sold comps for that exact set and year. See How Much Are My Sports Cards Worth? since ITG's small print runs and niche status mean values vary widely by player, era, and license status rather than following one blanket set price.

Confirm the exact card with Identify & Research — free-path first (on-device OCR, catalog match, and fingerprints). For the company that now owns the ITG name and continues its product lines, see What Is a Leaf Card? For how league and players'-association licenses determine what a manufacturer can legally print, see Sports Card Manufacturer Licensing Explained, or open the full guides library.