Jason Maxwell – NHL Athlete Relations for Bauer

Ever wondered what it's like to be the guy that all the top hockey athletes depend on for gear? Jason Maxwell joins Luds to chat the business side of the sport and share some great stories.

A special thanks to our sponsor Herman Marshall Whiskey. Built from the grain up. Just like good whiskey should be.
www.hmwhiskey.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you to Herman Marshall Whiskey forsponsoring another episode of SuDS with Luds.
Herman Marshall produces a small batch,handcrafted and award winning whiskey, patiently aged
in new white oak barrels. Whetherit's their Texas Bourbon, Texas Rye,
Texas Single Malt or their Blended BourbonWhiskey, all are built from the grain
up, just like good whiskey shouldbe. Make sure you ask for it

(00:22):
by name. Thank you again,Herman Marshall Whiskey. Well, welcome into
another episode here of SuDS with Luds. Today we have a special special guest.

(00:44):
I always say that Maxie. Bythe way, Jason Maxwell, who
has been with Bauer and Easton forover twenty years. Maxie going on twenty
one and so welcome first off.And if you don't, if you're one
of these people that listens to thepodcast, I get it. I would
suggest today that you may want togo to YouTube or whatever and try to

(01:08):
watch this one because what Maxie hasdone today is brought in some tools of
the NHL guys and so we've gotsticks and skates and gloves and we may
even get some scoops on a coupleof prima donnas in the NHL, and
but you can you can learn somestuff here UM today and hopefully hopefully we

(01:30):
have some young kids listening to thistoo, because I think there's a lot
of information when it comes to sticksand skates and that. So Maxie,
welcome. First off, thank you, and I want to also thank Herman
Marshall here for being a partner withus. And I'm sure we'll go down
the Herman Marshall road today to Maxie. Um. Since you've already got a

(01:51):
beer in front of you, let'stell me a little bit about let's let's
talk about Maxie. I mean youyou're a goaltender when you played right us
UM started, you know, agefive from upstate New York area, but
you know played you know all theway through uh junior in the USAHL and
then uh, you know, someminor minor pro stuff and West Coast Hockey

(02:14):
League and then a little pro roller. I got roped into hockey and it
was kind of a summer thing backthen for guys that were playing like in
the A or the Coast. Itwas a little way to go somewhere nice
like LA and collect a small paycheckand Um, get everything else paid for
for your summer. The only thingyou had to worry about was getting hurt
and going back because you're on wheels. I went to school just while I

(02:34):
was in the USHL, but justuh, we either had to get a
job or we had to had togo to college. So I just took
some college courses rather than getting ajob. So, well, since you
were a goalie, I love thesequestions. Um, I like to know
all the answers. I guess too. Now now, there's still a lot
of players that I deal with thatdon't know that I was a goalie.
So hopefully I don't see this.They think I'm an unreal shooter out there,

(02:57):
right, That's why I tell them. Anyways, Well, we played
a so you're actually you're my partner. I know you've seen we do live
by. Let's go out and slowit down. The world's trust this game.
We can sloat down and we canshut people down. But what was
your what was your goals against average? Oh? It was low, it
was low. Yeah. No,no, like when I was in the
us HL, which was you know, you know what it is today.

(03:19):
It was kind of the up andcoming junior league in the US. The
other one was was the league inMichigan which was Compyware and all those guys
was getting smaller. USHL was gettingbigger, more of a college prep league.
Um. And I was based inNorth Iowa for two years and I
did really well, just you know, had a lot of a lot of
um, you know, college teamsinterested in me, scholarships. I had

(03:44):
had some opportunities from like Providence washigh on my boys. I think they
were, that's right. I thinkum terrri was just moving out and they
need to start and go. Anyways, to make the long story short,
um, I moved back to LAwhere I was at some point with my
family, my parents and all that, and um you know, I just
had a girlfriend there and kind ofdidn't really hang it up. But it

(04:09):
wasn't really interested in in uh andgoing to college route. So so what
so okay, so now how didyou did you come right out of that
into getting into this or what didyou? And so here here's here's what
I did. Was I was backin LA and I was playing hockey there
just kind of in the summertime,and I you know, hockey players,

(04:29):
they all it's like a melting pot. All the all the good ones get
to you know, to a certainspot. And so that was the case
there, and I was I wasskating a lot with the Kings in the
summer. So I became you know, pretty close with Robotie and Steve Duchane,
who you know who lives here inDallas. And eventually those guys started,

(04:50):
you know, ninety nine showed upinto town and uh, the hockey
was booming in LA. So thoseguys started up a business and they were
building training facilities, ice rinks.Yeah, each one of them had a
you know, a nice restaurant init, two sheets of ice out west
there was a roller as well,and then they had you know, pro
shops or nice stores. So eventually, aside from hockey, I started working

(05:15):
for those guys and they were buildingyou know, six, eight, eight
of these rinks around the US,and they hired one capacity where you're working
for, they hired me to doto do all the pro shops. Okay,
So that's how I got into thethis this business. But when you
say that, me like order allthe products. Yeah, so I would.
I would start off at the onein California, which was their training

(05:35):
facility for the King's Isoplex it wascalled, which is still there, but
it's a new name now. Theysold it all out and from there we
we did one of the Bay Area. I went up there, opened that
one. What I did was openedthe store, hire the staff, train
them, and then move on tothe next one. Along with that,
I was always helping them build theirprogram. So I was teaching, you

(05:57):
know, kids, because they're allplaces that hockey was fairly new, so
they were trying to build it.So from there to the Bay Area,
bay Area, they bought one inEscondido, San Diego Area, took that
one over, you know, hiredthat, hired a new staff, retrained
him from there, and moved onto Tucson, brand new facility there.
Same thing. I was there atthese places anywhere from you know, three

(06:18):
to six months. Bay Area wasthere for a long time because that was
their first you know one in LAand then uh the next one, the
next stop was was here. Itwas Dallas. So so you were in
some pretty nice markets. Yeah,so I had I had no complaints,
and I was you know, inmy in my early to mid twenties going
to all these uh you know,these different places and spending a lot of

(06:41):
time there and then you know,we opened up Dallas and that was kind
of their last one, and soI think I was I was working at
that one for maybe two to threeyears and then, uh, you guys
had just won the Cup and soit was obviously starting to boom there the
kids involved, and I was atthat rink and Addison, which is where

(07:03):
the store was. Um you guyswere at Valley Ranch. So then somebody
from the Stars came to me andasked me if I would be interested in
um in doing helping them with theirexpansion for all their retail and at that
point, Roboti and du Shame,those guys were kind of tapped out or

(07:23):
done doing that. We're what theywere going to do. And so I
accepted that job with the Stars,and you know, we did all the
different facilities that around her now.So Uless I think was the first first
one that we did UM in Duncanvilleand then you know, blah blah blah.
So I did that for five yearsand from there what I was a

(07:44):
buyer, right, so this ishow you're making your It was Easton the
first company then, and that's whoyou Yeah, And so I was buying
from all these companies, and Malways had a really good relationship with with
Easton Bower as well. But UMand the Eastern guys, you know,
I made a little, a littledeal with them one year. They said,
okay, you know, if youincrease your numbers this next season,

(08:05):
by X, we're going to takeyou to on a golf trip to Maui.
So I think they were just usingme, but they didn't really care
if I increase my numbers. Butwe went on that trip to Maui.
So but yeah, So then thenI believe that there was either a lockout
that lockout year, remember that.And so then it was like, you

(08:28):
know, all right, what's goingto happen here? You know, you
never know. But we were doingwell, the stores were doing well and
everything, and you know they werehalf half hockey stuff and half merch you
know, retail or merch stuff.UM and the Stars came to me with
an offer just uh and and Iyou know, it was a great timing
and it was to do pro anda little bit of retail around this territory.

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So I started off with the Starsin Nashville where my two teams to
start, and then I had someretail stuff as well to do in college.
Um So from there it just kindof evolved, and I eventually became
you know, the manager of thepro department and as well as calling on
on my team. So I atsome point I probably called on you know,

(09:13):
twenty eight of the NHL teams,and there's only a few that I
didn't call. I never called ondirectly, but uh so I had gotten
really around the whole NHL to todevelop the relationships with the equipment managers obviously,
and then you know, then theplayers, and um it was a
great time for Easton because you knowtwo in two thousand is when they really
launched the one piece composite stick,the Synergy, and every just wondered how

(09:37):
good I could have been with that. I mean it was the year after
I mean you had the goals ayear Yeah, you had the shaft and
the wood blade. I mean,had you had just that actual little piece
of composite on there, letty,you would have been you had had another
ten another ten years. I quittwenty five years ago, and I shoot
harder did then? How did yougo about like learning about all the products?

(10:00):
The chef Yeah, I mean thesecompanies they had and no we have.
We have you know, engineers andproduct people that developed the product.
And the funny thing is thinking aboutthis earlier. When we go to these
these meetings as reps or whatever withour company and our developers and designers that
that are making this product, wewant to know about it, right.

(10:24):
Um. Sometimes they'll give you tenthings to talk do they want to talk
to you about about these this technology? I might bring three of those things
to an NHL player because they don'twant to hear all that. They want
two or three things that that thatyou know, really catch their attention.
Would they ever would they have everbrought a player in to say what are

(10:45):
you guys looking for? And ordo they just did at the time that
they just want to finished product?I mean no, we we do.
We've done it before. We've broughtplayers like at Easton. Our our stick
factor was in Mexico near Tijuana.So so so this is a weird thing.
Yeah, it's not like going toyou know, Cancoon or Cabo or
anything. Um. We would literallyfly players into San Diego. You take

(11:07):
them out to dinner or whine themand dine them. The next day,
our stick guru would pick us allup the hotel in a van and take
us. You know, they hadspecial crossing of the border because he worked
over there, you know, sohe had passed so he didn't have to
wait in that big line that peoplewait in. And NHLMS know about this
stuff. I don't. I don't. I don't think they do. I'm

(11:28):
just wondering if they they were okaywith their players going to possible because if
you'd have seen what I saw drivingfrom the border to the factory, I
mean it looked like the place hadhad just been bombed. You know,
it was crazy, and you neverknow down there. So so we're like,
you know, be lining it.It's like you see in a movie.
You know, they get get acrossthe border and they're just going one

(11:48):
hundred miles an hour and then aswe drove. But but anyway, so
we have we would bring players downthere, run them through the factory,
show them everything, and you know, I mean they could really have any
good input or not then not thenthey didn't. They were just checking it
out first off. So so thosethat era okay, we started signing players

(12:13):
like uh and these became all thepatterns that you know today. Um So
Sackic Eiserman, Ronic Heatley, madonnoUm that era players. Those are the
guys that we were paying uh Steviey Um, Gabbick, you know,
players like that were guys that wewould bring down there, okay and um
you know, and that's that's wherewe got all of our patterns shanahan um.

(12:39):
And to this day, I don'tknow if I'm getting getting ahead of
our We've betten. We have noplan here. So the number one pattern
to this day is is the oldsacket. I think that's what I was,
which is what you're using now,which is called the P ninety two.
Yeah. Um, so everybody's youknow, just things have changed throughout

(13:00):
the years with endorsement deals and andhow stuff is sold like on a shelf.
We don't put players names on thesticks necessarily anymore, because you might
have a two year endorsement deal withthem and maybe maybe after that second year
they don't resign with you. Butthere's a bunch of their sticks left in
retail stores and they're kind of they'rekind of either no good or they got

(13:20):
to sell them or you know,put them on sale could create something,
you know, something weird sometimes witha player. But and the the life
span for a for a stick modelis two years now, so every two
years it's changing. Something's changing,just like golf. So the pet,
Greg, can you grab the socket? This is where we want people to
tun and have one right here?Oh there you go. So so this

(13:43):
is p. Ninety two, whichwas the old sacket. Have you ever
known with these sticks, these compositesticks, many players that actually try to
curb them put theirs? Because Iknow who was the best at it,
and our opinion was Zoobie. Theydo and he was, Yeah, he
was a guy that then can comeup a little later in our conversation.
He was a stealth guy and hehad his own special pattern. So it

(14:05):
wasn't something that's sold at retail.Zubie was a guy that knew knew sticks
so well. I couldn't. Icouldn't pull any fast ones on. I
mean like like we we can dothat today, not not for for the
wrong reasons, but sometimes too muchinformation to these guys will just confuse me
even more, you know, Andthey don't need to be confused when I

(14:26):
find if I'm listening to this,which I didn't know, and if Zubie
has his own pattern, why wouldhe always be in the room with the
electric heat gun curving it again,I know, that's just that's how something.
I never come to you guys andsay, hey, this isn't right
always, not always, but buthe did many times, you know.
And and if I made him somethingand like the weight was off, he

(14:46):
could tell, you know, afew grams so grahams, like you know,
five to ten grahams is the weightof a dime. Yeah, you
know, And he could tell hecould tell that stuff, and he couldn't
lie to him, you know,because I knew he was right, because
I could look on the back ofthe stick and it would tell me.

(15:07):
We put a code code back there, and I could tell the weight of
the blade, the weight of theshaft, and the exact flex. And
we didn't want players to know aboutthat, but eventually it got out,
but they still couldn't understand what thecodes. So a code could could tell
tell me that the blade was offone graham, and they'd be like,
this is no good one gram onlybecause they see a code on there and

(15:30):
it's different from there. And Iwould be like, you know, Brad
Richards, I'd be like, Ritchie, it's a gram one gram. Do
you know how much that is Richie. Yeah you know, well wait a
second, he may go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but
uh, you know, so wewe just deal with a lot of that
stuff. And but anyway, Zoobiewas a great guy to work with.

(15:52):
I love that guy to this day. Was definitely one of my favorite guys
to always work with. You gotmad at me at times, you know,
like we get some breakage problems oror something would happen or using a
slump, had you know, hada bad game or two, um,
and a lot of times they blametheir equipment. They can blame me their
rep of course. And uh andthat's when things aren't going well, no
points are coming and yeah, Iwant to get into that later, like

(16:15):
how many times you get calls fromguys? But so, explain the sockic
curve if you, because I mean, so this this curve was it's really
just a mid curve with a littlebit open at the toe and it's just
a personal preference on curves. Sothere's no curve that really, you know,
with the exception of like, youknow, something that they're teaching today

(16:37):
on on how guys, shoot,they're teaching a technique like how Ov shoots.
Um, And that is really relyinga lot on the technology of the
sticks and UM, so you're sayingyou can actually teach people how Ov shoots
and they do that become the nextYeah, I think possibly, you know,
I mean if you if, ifthat's your dream. But I'm telling

(17:00):
you these these instructors now and notwhere they're all come from, because they
might not even shoot like that,but they but this is how they teach
guys to shoot. Now, sowhen they teach them this technique of shooting,
it's where they pull it in reallyclose to their body and then they
lean on the flex and then theyleft. The flex does a lot of
work. This stick does the workfrom there. So there is true technology

(17:23):
and hockey sticks and it does work. And that that actually makes sense.
Whereas before you know this technology orthis style is shooting, Um, it
was different, like you didn't reallyyou know know other than you know,
the feel of the stick, theshaft shape or whatever was to you.
It was more of a personal preference, you know. But now if you

(17:45):
if you go to this Southern style, which would be hard for you know,
a guy that from back in theday ten years ago, um to
use that type of a curve orto move to it, because guys were
using heel curves, you know,um are most Our number two most popular
pattern back in the day was wecall it the dreary, which was a
heel curve with an open toe.Um. Probably now in the NHL there

(18:10):
might be three or four guys.Still why would a player want that type
of a curve? Um, sothat that curve is really good for you
know, passing receiving a pass.You get it close to the heel and
then they you know, from therethey can when they shoot the puck,
they can shoot it off the toe. They can you know, they can

(18:30):
toe drag a little bit um withthat style of a curve. But um,
it's just really a feel thing,you know, and you can get
off a good backhand with it becauseit's not it. Yeah. So with
with a newer curve like the Ovatkinstyle, it's just this big toe curve.
And when I when I tried oneof those, and truthfully, again

(18:51):
I know I mentioned it earlier,but the guy that's kind of created all
this was one of your old teammates, and he was the guy using a
seventy flex shaft with a big toecurve. Bret Hall. Remember he was
the first guy to use that reallywhippy thing and everybody was like, and
you said he would lean on it. It was nice to watch it in
slow motion, yeah, And likeI would see him shoot from the corner,

(19:14):
like near the goal line, youknow, at the goalie where there's
usually no chance. But the waythat thing would whip and it would go
high, you know, it's justhard hard for goalies to pick up on
it. So is is Olvetchkin's shaftas whoopie as Hollies was pretty close so
that they were really um leaning onthat whip that comes off there. Now,

(19:37):
from the standpoint of that that tollcurve, is that where he's hitting
it, because it doesn't seem likeis that where the puck is striking?
The stick is in the toll curveitself. So so with ovie and let
me grab a stick. We gotan ov down here, thank you.
So I don't know if if thiscan be seen, Okay, you can

(20:00):
see that that toe curve. Okay, So when he shoots the puck,
uh, if he's just just Idon't know how you control that. If
he's skating in and he's doing asnapshot on the move, it comes from
here, Okay, But when he'staken one time or as those are coming
from here Okay. That that wasmy question, Like where he's hitting it
out. Yeah, so he's nothitting it from the toe on a one
timer. Yeah. But but whenhe's coming down, I mean, obviously

(20:22):
probably he's fifty fifty halftime, he'sshooting a one time or other time.
He's coming in and just firing alaser snapshot. Otherwise he doesn't doing any
other shots. You know. Theflex is the same as what Hollies would
have been. Yeah, so he'suh, he's been bouncing around anywhere between
like a seventy seven and eighty two. Um. And he's a big boy,
yeah you know, I mean Iknow Holly wasn't I know? Yeah,

(20:48):
yeah, I know Holly was,you know, a bigger boy but
too but not he had a lotof displaced stone here, not even not
big like not big like Ovius style. Um. Yeah, so that's how
they're shooting these days. And therethere teach him to shoot like OVI does
his snapshots. They bring it inclose to their body, they lean on
the shaft and then they release anduh and the shaft does a lot of

(21:10):
the work. So are they comingin when when he talked about guys going
down there and going through the plantand things like that, how are they
how are they getting their points acrossfrom a flex standpoint, like is it
just trial and error or so?Then then it was really really hard,
you know, like we would givehim a few things to try and they
would they would go with what feltthe best. Okay, so we just

(21:32):
um, Now, obviously technology hasgotten so much better. We have an
R and D facility up in Quebec, and in there we build our pro
skates um. But also we haveyou know, a stick section, a
helmet section, UM and and everythingelse that we do. We do testing
you know for helmets up there.But long story short, we we run
players too there all the time,and um, we'll bring him in there.

(21:56):
We have a small sheet of iceabout the size of this room,
and and um we hooked them upto all sorts of stuff. You've seen
it in the golf industry where they'retrying to mimic the golfers swing and all
that. We have all that allthat stuff that we do, and we
do all all this testing testing.So it's based off really how the guy's
shooting, and um, then welistened to what he likes, so we

(22:17):
just had in Uh, I guessI could probably say it, but um,
Huberto, Yeah, he's obviously offfor the summer. Um. He's
been a CCM guy for a longtime and he's never really been a tweaker.
I haven't really tried much. Um. I think it's okay. Yeah,
I don't think he's going anywhere now. Um. But but so so
we we videotaped him, we analyzeit with our stick guru, and and

(22:44):
then he comes back and says helooks at all these different points and and
again like you can talk to this, to these players. You can tell
him ten things they might catch youknow, three things out of those ten.
And Um, so from from whatwe did with him yesterday, he
came back to us with what hewanted and what he liked and what he
liked about a CCM and what hedidn't and then we build him sticks based

(23:07):
off of that. So now he'sa passer. Yeah, I mean I
think that's his strength as a passer. Are they a different kind of weird
than a shooter when it comes totheir sticks? As far as the flex
versus the pattern. Not really no, no, um, you know like
Maxnomy, he's a great passer.Yeah, he uses the P ninety two.

(23:30):
Um, just a you know,a regular flex. Obviously. You
know, the shorter you are,the shorter usually cut your stick. So
the shorter you cut your sticks,do the sticks come their length? They
do? They want them? Dothey want to cut him themselves? Because
I know sometimes and I needed aquarter of an inch longer. Yeah,
some do. And at Easton wewould we would cut the sticks to the

(23:53):
length of the player's choice. Wecurrently at Bower, we don't it just
um, it takes up at outof time in the factory when you're when
you're just trying to pump out sticks, you know, and and meet lead
times for these guys to get themtheir sticks. So we will make a
standard length of sixty inches, We'llsay. Then we'll make a plus four,

(24:15):
a plus six and a plus eightfor a hawk and pah. So
like the Charas and Alexei X,those guys, Now what is the isn't
there is there still a rule asfar as there there is. Let they
get some kind of a pass.They did, unless you're some freaking nature
or whatever. Yeah, yeah,same same with goalies. I know what
is the standard? Can't be anybigger m. It would probably have to

(24:37):
be seventy yeah, seventy inches.So what would a guy like Chara versus
champion Alexa? What do you thinkthey're using? Length? M? I
mean Hawk and Pa is at asixty eight? Sixty eight? Okay,
you know, and and that's that'spretty good. I can't remember what Chara
was using at the end of theday. It was longer than that,
I do remember, because we hadto get approval to build it. Um
and I don't think Alexeiyak has anythinguh out of the range of where it's

(25:02):
supposed to be. Let's let's talkabout Patrick Kane. What what does and
then we'll get a little obviously,we'll get a little close to home here
with a couple of guys. Hereis is how is Patrick Kane's model when
it comes to kids? Like isthe I'm just wondering, can you give
me the top three when it comesto you. I don't know whether it's

(25:22):
college or or below. Is therea specific pattern that yeah, it's still
the P ninety two is one.The P twenty eight, which is the
big toe hook um, and thenfrom there it's really those two. There's
a distant third, which is aP eighty eight um, which was like
a old real Madonnald curve. Soyou know, remember his similar with what

(25:45):
you used to use. Probably umdifferent results, but yeah, definitely different.
It's like I have everybody's curve likein my head from all these years
still. But then from there we'llmake a bunch of variations of these popular
patterns. So Jamie Benz is aP ninety two and he has a little
flip toe on the end, yes, which he did by himself with a

(26:07):
with a torch at some point.But normally, like even with Zoobie we
talked about it earlier, when theystart to heat him up, they usually
break, you know, right,But Zoobie was the master at that.
He could get it just a littlebit more without and he had the touch
with that heat gun. And theworst thing though, is when when he
grabbed a new stick and he andequipment managers watching him curve it, and
then you hear it snapped. They'relike, so what about these what about

(26:32):
like the Patrick knees the passers?Yea, it surprises me that they don't
have a flatter blade because because thepassers. I look at Panarin Kine,
you know, you can go downdown the line with some of these guys
that you would think it would bea straighter blade so you can make the
backhand passes. So there aren't manythat use that anymore. I don't know.

(26:52):
I just saw summing on social mediain regards to Leon dry Citle's curve.
It's a really big paddle, butit's like this and it's pretty straight.
He makes passes like rockets on hisback end. Yeah, from the
right side of the ice to theleft side of the ice, it's a
rocket. I mean, there's notmany anymore like these guys are using that

(27:12):
just half of the blade that areato make their passes, you know.
And that would be if it's onthe back end it's closest to the heel,
you know, and then to themiddle of the blade because they're not
doing it from the toe because it'llroll right off right because it because of
the curves. But but Patrick Kanehas never changed his curve. It's the
old Easton Shannahan. It's it's fairlystraight for the first three quarters of the

(27:33):
blade, you know, and thenit's got a little bit at the toe
and it's a square toe, buthe's just used to it, you know.
The last one before we talk abouta couple of starters, Ryan O'Riley.
It could be the ugliest stick outthere. Is that made or does
he put that little hook on theend of it? No, that they
make it for him like that?Yeah, because um, you know between
him uh and you remember Leclair usedto have something weird like that too.

(27:57):
But also you know, one ofmy favorite guys that I've that I've dealt
with over the years was Duncan Keith. And Duncan was pretty psycho about his
sticks, and he had a littlewedge in the bottom of his blade bottom
at the toe, which wasn't likea full notch, you know, it's
not something he would break it,you know to make that curve, and

(28:21):
then we would send it in andtry to make them hold of it.
And we finally got it down eventually. But it was really hard to make
a mold like that, but wegot it down eventually. But his was
an unique one. But it wasa pretty pretty straight curve and had that
little corner and I think he feltlike he could dig pucks off the boards
with it like that, you know, and I think that's where where Jamie
ben likes that fliptoe that he has, which is actually one of our our

(28:44):
curves that we offer on my bower, which is something for kids that can
go on and pick curves. It'sgotten really really popular to have that little
beak toe we call it, speakingof popular and maybe not so popular.
What's the deal with the one withthe yeah, so with this line with
don't what do you actually call it? Because I never got it? So
so this is um, this isa mistake. No, this is not.

(29:11):
And when when we come out withstuff like that, we um as
pro reps. We're like, okay, is this a gimmick? Because if
it's a gimmick, then then we'renot going to bring you to the NHL.
And so they came out with this. Unfortunately it got kind of killed
by COVID. So it's a youknow, a two year life cycle.
Right at the beginning or just beforeCOVID we came out. We we had

(29:33):
gotten some traction with it, uhin Boston, you know, because it's
close to our our our head office. Um Debrusk was using it. Anyways,
long story short, it's called slanktech and its sling tech. And
and we'll still make it if Igot if a guy wants it, but
but nobody's really asking for it anymore. But the bottom part of the blade,
what was the why why was theconcept come up with? Yeah,

(29:56):
so the bottom part of the bladehas a technolog so it's more forgiving,
so you get catching passes and thingslike that. Really for catching passes or
for shooting, so sling you thinkit a sling sling shot. And then
and then the middle part, youknow, helps definitely take some weight out
of it, but it also partit's empty and yeah, the whole but

(30:18):
and then then the top is reallyrigid, right, so this bottom part
from here to here is extra extra, you know, cushy. Yeah,
so that was it. Sling hadnothing to do with the weight of a
stick. No, you've heard thatthen too. Yeah, people wanted to
lighten it up. Yeah, andguys wanted they're like I don't want to
tape over it, you know,or like you can tape over it.
It's not to do with aerodynamics oror definitely helps with weight for sure,

(30:42):
but it was just to separate asofter material from a more rigid material.
Or anybody using it. Um.I don't think anybody anybody for a period
of time. Yeah, oh yeahthere was. There was about six or
eight guys using to start on it. Um. I mean it was good.
But and and truthfully, like Ithink uh Debrusk just went through a
slump. Yeah, you know,and then COVID happened, and then when

(31:04):
they came out of it, itwould just kind of disappeared, fizzled out.
So so that you can get themfor a good price. Now if
there any left, Yeah, there'sany left. There's one right here.
Yeah, it's for sale. Andand this is some lucky we'll give that
the some lucky winner or that.And this is that P twenty eight curve
which is the big toe. Anyways, So so it talk to me a

(31:26):
little bit about dealing with some ofthe players that does it end up?
I mean about being the sticks faultor the skates fault. I mean,
do you get those phone calls personally? Yes, can you give me the
Let's start with the top three thatyou would say are picky, and I'm
assuming they're goal scorers. Yeah,well not not necessarily, but I'm gonna

(31:49):
I'm gonna go from a pretty goodrange of you know, from current to
some of the past. But um, a lot of them are just guys
that that you know, like alot of attention. Uh. And And
a great example was when PK.Suban was in Montreal. Yeah, you
know, he loves the attention.So he was, you know, he

(32:13):
was just becoming a thing. Andwe would send him in his sticks.
I was with Easton at the time. He'd get in twenty four and he
would reject eighteen of them. He'dgo through them all and reject eighteen of
them, saying these are no good. Couldn't say why, he would just
say these are no good. Andthere at the time a lot of times
checked them. So he kept sixout of that eighteen. And I'm looking

(32:35):
at the codes on the back right, going like, okay, these are
all in spec you know, likenobody could tell, not even Zoobie.
Um. And so we would takethe sticks out of there, rebundle them
up, rebundle them, repacked them, send him back in and he'd take
out twelve of the ones that hesaid we're bad and say these ones are
good and those six are no good. So we so we didn't we don't

(32:57):
like to do that. But youknow, when you're dealing with the play
or like that and there's nothing wrongwith the stuff, like we're not just
gonna let him have Well he thoughtwe did, but um did did Did
that ever happen because of his performanceat that time or not necessarily? Not
necessarily it just kind of a moodhe was in, you know, yeah.
Uh and and how he wanted toyou know, be perceived around the

(33:19):
room with some of the other players, like like he's the real deal or
a big deal. Um. Butbut I know that uh Tarasanko does that.
He rejects ton of his tons ofhis sticks. Um. And and
there's guys that are just simply playingbad, you know, so they look
for something to blame. Um.And some of them, some of them
are great about it. They're likethey'll see me. They'll be like Max,

(33:40):
I no it's not it's no,I know, it's not my gear.
So do you find that when ifthere's that type of a player,
would they blame it more on thesticks versus the skates or gloves or is
there sticks? I mean it doeshappen with gloves. Um. We're getting
a little bit of that with acouple of guys. It does happen with
skates. Um I did, Ido want to mention to you. I

(34:01):
got clearance to uh last night.I ran into Brendan Morrow in the in
the hallway there and I said,hey, I'm doing uh SuDS with luds
tomorrow and I just want to getyour permission because I might your name might
come up tomorrow. So he's like, oh boy, He's like Maxie.
He goes whatever, whatever he goeson. Because exactly so I said,

(34:22):
I said, he goes, whatare you gonna say? I go,
well, I go when you werewhen you were playing, he was a
captain and and maybe you were goingthrough a little bit of a slump.
Uh. The equipment manager Sudsy.Sudsy would call me in and give me
the give me the situation. SoI become from there, I become the
you know, the shrink. Idon't come in with any gear like I

(34:44):
know what, I know what itis. It's he's just not playing well.
So he just wants to ask yousome questions. So I'd come in,
you know, and when I've lostfour or five games in a row,
and I would just stand there andthere would be like a line and
they'd all come by one by oneand they'd have question for me. But
but more I would come by andhe'd be like Max, he goes,
did you did you change anything inmy sticks? I go, no,

(35:06):
not a thing, man, wehaven't change a thing. He's all right.
He'd be all all bumm because he'shoping he can blame that. He's
hoping he can blame the sticks,you know. Um so, so I
do a lot of that, anduh, you know for certain players,
dun Dunk Keith was one of them. Um you know now it's it's uh
ninety one on Dallas Is he needsa lot of a lot of that,

(35:28):
Like well he needs to use thesame reassurance because he had a hell of
a game last night, but reassurancewe're doing this this episode, by the
way, and last night was gameseven that stars were moving on now.
So yeah, so it's really itends up being at the same guys that
we would think it would be.I would assume that it's always the top
players, and um, what aboutskates? What what about? I mean,

(35:52):
how picky and I can set thisup bright from my college days a
couple of years in college and untilI was done playing prole, That's what
twenty something whatever it was, Ihad four pair of skates. So compare
that to some guys now. Yeah, So so this is on skates and
sticks, like, the usage is, Um, we pretty much have an

(36:13):
average I'll just say sticks really quick. Average is about one hundred sticks per
year per player, not including playYeah. Um, then you got a
guy like Speza who is three sticksper game no matter what. Uh,
and if you're a rep and you'reon commission, you do whatever he wants.
Um, so sticks Now with someof these superstars, with Vetchkin,

(36:35):
Tarasanko, Uh, seems like itmight be a lot of Russian guys.
But um, they're they're using youknow, four to six sticks a game,
and are they breaking on There's literallynothing wrong with these sticks. So
so let's say let's let's I don'tknow, is there anybody like that in
Dallas currently? Um, well,not that bad the heav users in Dallas

(37:00):
and these are guys that aren't hardon their sticks necessarily. But but just
like just like a new twig,you know, Saggy Ben used a fair
amount of sticks. So let's let'ssay that different type of play stick tapes
it up, brings it off obviouslythey test their sticks in morning skates,
right, yep, test it inpre game six are good to go?

(37:22):
They got four sticks? It inthere SuDS they get four, six,
five sit whatever it may be.They don't like that stick. What happens
that stick when they don't like it? Do you know team takes it?
End up going into pro shop?Yeah, it goes. It goes a
lot of teams nowadays. Well,if it's game used that most of the
teams sell them themselves. They resellthem because they're paying us for all these
sticks anyway. So so average stickstick user was one hundred sticks per year,

(37:46):
per per season, um. Andnow there's you know, players that
are up you know, two fiftythree hundred last stick I'll tell you about
as fifty three hundred per year they'reusing, Okay, and that really translates
to a lot of dollars. Andwe're sports marketing US pro reps, so
we're not sales guys. But atthe same time, you know, we
kind of are. But uh,Tampa ordered Kutrof seventy seventy two sticks just

(38:09):
for the playoffs. Okay, wellyou brought it up, so spin off
on that. Do NHL teams theydid at a time. I don't know
if they still do. Are theydo? They have stick budgets, they
do. It wasn't there a yearwhere a player I don't know how many
years this went, but players wereonly getting X amount of sticks a year
or dollar amount per year? Isthat right? So yeah, they tried

(38:30):
that, but then but then theplayers it didn't because how do you tell,
you know, Tyler Sagan, Sorry, you've reached your limit. Now
you're gonna have to buy the restof your sticks. It just doesn't doesn't
work. So do you know,well, obviously you do know. Can
you give us a ballpark on budgets? Stick budgets for teams and different or

(38:51):
is there is there an NHL thingthat says no, max is this every
team? Every team sets their ownstick and skate budget things like that.
And if you happen have Lou Lamarilloas your GM, you're in trouble.
Well if you have here, yeah, there's a lot of Yeah, Okay,
he's really tight tight, you know, with the budget, and hey,
it's not a bad thing. Um, well yeah, and I used

(39:15):
to deal. I had New Jersey, Um when Lou was there, I
had them for a couple of years, and I had a couple of big
boys there back in the day,pre says one. He was one.
He's still playing obviously, um.But you know he's a really great guy,
great player to deal with, alittle quirky with what he wants and
what he likes. So we callhim a tweaker, you know, because
they just like to change little things, and and these little things take a

(39:37):
lot of time to do for us, you know, you know, make
mold week than order sticks two moreweeks. And he was a long story
short. It was just really tightin New Jersey, you know. Uh.
And some of the some of theteams have an equipment manager who's also
maybe getting incentivized by staying under budget. So they're they're working like you know,

(39:58):
for the for the gm UM asopposed to you know, and you
know how these equipment guys are.But do they get like at the start
of the season when they do theirbudget, do they say one hundred thousand
dollars for sticks? This is what? I don't know what that is in
that Am I in that neighborhood orno? Because you know Dallas would spend
fifty thousand on spez only for sticks. Oh lord, yeah, so what

(40:22):
can you give us a ballpark?Like some of the teams, Well,
every everybody's different. Like I Ican tell you that, um, Vegas,
Toronto, Tampa, Colorado, Dallas, you know, as they've all
had pretty large budgets. And I'mthinking only for the company that I work
for, you know, so Idon't know what they what they spend on

(40:44):
CCM or I mean I could,I could do the math, you know,
based off how many players use thosetheir products and Warrior or whatever.
But uh, you know, Imean some of the information I'm probably not
allowed to reveal. But but butyou know, like they're they're paying close
to what you would buy a stickfor in a store. They get they
get a little bit of a breakbecause they're doing they're higher volume. So

(41:07):
if a stick is you know,three hundred in a store, um,
you know, yeah for one placefor one guy. Yeah, okay,
so you guys out there smarter thanthe out Yeah, they can do that
math. Um uh now you know. So so moving on to skates,
skates is uh, it's another thing. Um, all of our skates players

(41:28):
wear a custom skate. In theNHL. There are a few guys that
were a stock skate right out ofthe out of the store, you know.
Um, which is great because theycan get them really quick. Um,
so take them, take our listenersthrough the process when they get a
paradnew skates. What a player does, Yeah, so well, what we
do first of all is we wecome and we fit the guy. We

(41:49):
have some some fit stock skates justfor them to try on. We also
have now we have a scanner,a three D scanner that they stand on.
It takes about eight seconds to scanyour feet and then it pumps out
something on your iPad that shows athree D model of the guy's feet,
and then that goes right into thecloud. Our our factory, downloads it

(42:12):
and they build this guy's skates basedoff the skan So every little bump it's
built into their skates if they wantthat, which most guys we do scan
and we go that route. Butsome guys prefer, you know, their
skates to fit a little bigger,a little smaller. Um, well yeah
exactly. But but if a scansays you're a size eight and you've you

(42:37):
know, you've been in junior,been wearing a nine, you're you know,
you might not be comfortable in aneight, So we got to listen
to that. And I've I've gonethrough that over over the years with uh,
some players coming out of the CanadianHockey League and also a lot of
the players coming from um from Russia. They just in Russia, they don't
they don't get a lot of serviceover there. So like you know,

(42:57):
val uh Nakushkin for example, hecame over with so they're easy to deal
with. No, No, theydon't get a lot of new so they
don't want a lot of new Manand they were they were not properly fit.
So they're wearing skates. There aretwo sizes too big, so for
something you're saying, they're more lowmaintenance and yeah, usually but eventually if
they get they get the taste andthey've been over here for a while,

(43:20):
you know, and depends it dependson who they're sitting next to in the
locker room, so um, youknow. So, so there's a lot
of that going on with them,and I've refit a lot of them and
over the years, a couple ofguys Drew Dowdy, Tyler, Sagan Um,
Mike Camillarry just just some of therandom guys that I know that we're
fit incorrectly in junior. And I'vescanned them. I've looked at what like

(43:43):
they're wearing a skate that's over asize too big, you know, And
I'm like, okay, so here'sthe deal. I let them know.
I just so you know, andthis is this is the downside to wearing
something that's too big for you onthe ice. You get all sorts of
uh problems can can come out ofit and performance and then also breakdown to
the skate. Um. So I'vegradually brought these guys down to a smaller

(44:04):
size without telling them. Um,and I work in Cahusa. Ever work,
I will ever bring it up tothem. I do after a while.
So so me and SuDS. Hedid it to Sagan and we brought
him down over the summertime. Webrought him down like a half size because
his skates were way too big,you know, and he wears a huge
skate as it is, it's likea size eleven and a half now,
and he was a twelve um tyler. Yeah really so so me and si

(44:31):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah itwas big, I mean ideally for him
like his two feet of the differentsizes, So we'll just say, he
was in a twelve and he shouldbe in eleven. So we brought him
down half the size over the summerand didn't tell him, you know,
until he's like, yeah, everything'sgreat, skates are good, blah blah
blah. We're like all right,and then you know, later on I'll
be in the in the state room. Yeah, by the way, you

(44:51):
know, we brought you down alittle bit, you know, so um,
you know, and he's like thanksto himself for a minute, like,
you know, I don't want theseguys not ever trust me because they
need they need to be able totrust their rep and not all of them
do. But can you tell uswhat a what a skate waste? Yeah,
skates are probably in the eight hundredGraham range. Can you do something

(45:15):
that's not from your arm I wouldsay a pair is probably four pounds.
Now, what would that be differentfrom twenty years ago? Yeah, definitely
skates were they are made out ofcomposite. Now, skates back then we're
made out of leathers and nylons andum, just a lot of heavier materials.
So everything now it's composite. Internallyit's synthetic or lightweight foams, um,

(45:38):
do they break down ease year andall that not really like if you
if you look at it like thisstuff is and you're not, I don't
understand how guys get hurt anymore withthese this stuff and they're wearing extra protection
on the outside of those. Butso it's really hard to break that down.

(45:58):
Uh. So eating into the tothe topic of usage on these there
are some guys that were one totwo pair of skates a year. Uh
and then there are other guys thatare wearing twenty five pairs. So what's
the craziest guy? Um, Iwant to see one of them this next
round with the Dallas Stars. Um, well, there's a couple on Dallas,
but but none of them Vegas,none of them compared to the one

(46:21):
to one on Vegas. So,um, maybe maybe three or four years
ago, Buffalo requested a new pairof skates for every game for Icle,
every game, every game, Soeighty two pair of skates is wearing a
different pair of skates every game orI mean, I don't I don't know
if we ever gone to that.No, no, no, no,
They're definitely all for him. Um, And it was legit like he was

(46:44):
wanting a new pair every game anduh, he just got used to that
new field. There's nothing wrong withthe ones when he's done. Um,
So moving on to like you know, for for Dallas, So Sagan's a
pair every four games. Wait,let's for a second. Okay, maybe
if you're listening to this podcast beforethe next round starts on Friday, you

(47:06):
might want to make up a coupleof signs at it just kind of hate
Michael. Hey Jack, all yourskates feeling today? You got I don't
know, I'm just throwing that out. Is that a new pair? You
might need a new so? Okay, now, just on those skates,
do they have to put them inand bake them or anything like that or
they come right out of the box. Name Well, you don't have to
bake them, but we we recommendthat you do. It'll just loose skates
that are wearing skates every day?Is that? Yeah? So they always

(47:30):
they always they almost nine out often would bake them. And and really
yeah, so we have we haveovens um that we use, you know
in the hockey industry to bake skatesand we put them in the in the
oven at two hundred grees degrees forabout five six minutes. And what that
does it loosens up the inside materials, so they mold and conform around your

(47:52):
foot, but they're already molded totheir foot to start with. Correct,
The boot is the hard stuff.Yeah, so you're not getting any pressure
points from the hard stuff, butthe inside stuff there's some memory foams and
stuff that that when you heat themup, it just softens them up a
little bit, so those mold aroundyour feet a little bit quicker, and
um, just give you a quicker, more comfortable fit for right away,

(48:14):
game ready. So really, really, these skates look like they're a lot
stiffer and harder to break in thanskates were twenty years ago, but they're
actually easier to break in. Notalked to about the blades because we're seeing
a lot of players because some peopleare what the hell's going on with that
guy? As are crawling off theice. Yeah, so there's a lot

(48:36):
of there's a lot of stuff goingon with holders and steel these days,
a lot of improvements in technology,a lot of profiles that players are are
tweaking and trying. But prior touh, you know this edge holder which
Bauer had developed, Um, Idon't know, we'll just say it was
six seven years ago. Prior tothat, the holder and deal. The

(49:00):
only way to get the steel outis you had to take the whole thing
out rivet by rivet, and thenyou could replace the steal with these two
screws. I mean, that's that'sa break a blade. You're screwed.
Yeah, it's a that's a halfan hour job for equipment manager at best.
Um So, So Bower came outwith something called the trigger and you

(49:20):
pull it and the steel comes rightout. Um So, this this was
a huge game breaking thing for forthem, and Bower is the only one
that had it. CCM recently cameout with their version, which has hasn't
seemed to catch on, you know. Uh So there's a lot of guys
that you'll see wearing a CCM skatebut using a Bower holder out there.
Um So, the ones that wereyou see popping out, that was the

(49:45):
previous holder. Bower has just comeout with a new holder, which they've
improved that so it usually it's whenthey get hit back here in the heel
pops you can pop the steal outum on the previous holders. So this
this whole new holder coming out nextseason. They have fixed that that problem.
So you'll see lots there. They'restill I was gonna say, because

(50:06):
they're still popping out, but comingnext year, yeah, this new one
will be available or the players jamanymore. This should be a lot.
It's kind of funny to watch them. You never know what the hell is
going on. I know, butbut sometimes the steel will break right in
the middle, you know, whichis happy you take a hard shot off
that you know, anything can break, so um so, but that's different
than than the steel popping out.But yeah, so yeah, the steel
has become you know, a biggerdeal in the NHL, and each player

(50:30):
is probably using how many How didthe trainer like, how many pairs of
steel? Would just one extra pairwould you say during a game or what?
Now? So now now when they'reon the road, not at home's
different but on the road, right, So every team has their own little
uh way they go about doing things. But most of the players are probably
using twelve sets of steel during theseason. Uh. San Jose is one

(50:52):
that you know when you're down therebefore on game day morning skate equipment guys
are just sharpening away. Now theydo all at home, but they a
lot of them have machines that doit all for you. And all you
do is you just pack the steeland away you go. So rather than
getting to each city and having aresharpened skates all the time, they've got
twelve sets in a box for eachplayer. Talking about time saver for the

(51:15):
It's huge. And the funny thingis, and we're we're now heavy into
the to the steel business profiling,and we we actually bought a skate sharpening
company or a profiling company that doesall that stuff too. And and it's
like I'm going in and talking toteams about this, and you know,
you have some younger, younger generationof equipment guys, and then you got

(51:37):
some guys that have been around fora while, I e. Sudsy Um
Well, some of them just theyjust don't like change. By the way,
Steve Sumner or the Dallas Stars headtrainer is going to be calling her
quits after twenty plus years and he'scoming on what other short to command and
SuDS with I know he should be. He should be right in here when

(51:57):
when they're when the season's over.But yeah, I did talk to him
the morning. I'm like, SuDSretirement could have been today, So he's
pretty pumped that they're that they're movingon. But but yeah, he'll be
a good one for share, youknow, I mean the info that I
have, you know, he's gotat times ten on these guys talk a
little bit about trainers, like wewere close to to try to get players

(52:21):
into certain stuff, and like,is there is there that kind of a
because again, like you mentioned earlier, from upstairs, they come to the
trainer and say, hey, soand so was using too many of this
whatever it may be. Yeah,so I would assume that do you have
to go through trainers sometimes to useyour products if they're say they're using a
different company's product a player? YeahNo, not not really, Like like

(52:43):
our job is really to get witha player directly, and then the player
tells the equipment guy what he wantsto use and then then that they cut
us a po and the team buysit. But there's so many different little
things that you could do to pissequipment guy off that you don't want to
do. So we have to bein constant communication with them, you know,
because if I go in and Iswitched, uh, you know,
a player out, because the playersgoing right directly to the trainer right there

(53:06):
are they are the players calling youwhen most most of them okay, well
they have us on speed dial atit and they don't hesitate to text me
or call me at midnight on aTuesday night when they just got you know,
so what'sference, But they do that. That's Tuesday night. They're on
the bus after they just got whippedby a team and they need event.
Yeah, you know. I meanI could show you some of the text

(53:29):
messages that I get from some ofthese guys that I that I considered friends,
but when their stuff isn't right orthey don't feel like it's right,
man, they and and a lot. It was really tough coming out of
COVID because all that supply chain stuff, but so stuff was hard to get,
you know. But but I gota real doozy from from Braden Shin
in Saint Louis. I mean,he just he just ripped in gave me

(53:52):
the gears like I'll never get ridof that text. But um, he
was just is he's still a customeror he is he is he is and
we're great like ipe. They understandthat you could delay a product. You
I mean, not that you guysever would. But and you can't do
that because that's a losing. That'sa losing. I mean, I mean
some of them don't some of themget it, like some of them totally

(54:14):
get it, yeah, and someof them don't get or they get it,
but they just refuse to you know. Yeah. Um, but but
yeah, No, it was askate thing for him and he's a you
know, pretty heavy user. Andand I'll be honest with the man,
when you switch models, you know, to a new model like these are
every two years, we're changing something, you know on skates. Why,

(54:36):
uh is that you were the playersthat want it changed. No, it's
the it's the companies. Like we'rejust like any golf company. We got
to come out with new products forfor the consumer. You know, these
kids they want new stuff. Theydon't they don't want to buy something that's
you know, old technology. Soalways trying to improve it, make it
lighter, you know, stronger,faster, whatever it is. Um in

(54:58):
all products, you know. Soon the skate thing, I asked you
this earlier. I'm just trying tograb a couple of glasses here. This
is a Herman Marshall pits up.Um. Why when you've got who I
would say ninety nine point nine percentof the hockey fans on the planet consider

(55:22):
a Connor McDavid the best player onthe planet. Right, Why are there
Jordan shoes and Kolbe shoes? AndI can't believe I just named two basketball
players because I'm not really a basketballfan. But why does Connor McDavid not
have a branded skate? Because itseems to me like as a kid,

(55:44):
they would all go to the parentsand they're gonna think they can skate like
Connor if they had Connor skates.Yeah, there's a few things. One
is, hockey's a really really smallindustry in comparison to other sports, and
it's not growing. But um,two is, since we come out with
a new product or new models everytwo years, so we have two model

(56:07):
skates. We stagger them, right, So every year we have a new
skate coming out, it's either aSupreme or a vapor. Is a marketing
thing? Um you say, yeah, I mean some of it is,
but but but some of it isdefinitely new technology. Uh so here here's
what happens. You get some ofthese players. Yeah, Rustler do this
on the show all the time.I can do that on this show.

(56:31):
Um, but some guys don't likechange, right, So all the sticks
that we sell out there, likethe one with the hole in the blade,
we know. I mean, Iwas if I was a betting man,
I was going to bet that thatone wasn't really gonna resonate with NHL
hockey players, and it, youknow, for a couple of reasons,

(56:52):
it didn't. So Okay, thatmight have been a okay, that was
might have been not a great launchfor us at pro ref. It was
fine. Kids loved it, um, but we will always make a player
and they don't. They don't alwaysbelieve us, but we will always make
a player of Patrick Kane or evena third line guy. There, same

(57:14):
old stick that they've been using sinceKale mccarr he uses. He's using the
same stick he used in college.It's heavy, it's a log. All
we do is update the graphics.Um. We just don't want to keep
selling old graphics of something you can'tget anymore. That's old. But so
so back to McDavid and the skatething, so I'm assuming he's in an

(57:36):
old model that they don't want tomarket because you can't get him anymore.
I haven't really looked at his skatelately. You see which model he's in,
he's see he's a ccmen athlete U. But you will see some other
players. Um, have you guysyour company approached to anybody with that?
Can we put you in your nameon a skate? Oh? Like not

(58:00):
not really? I mean I thinkfor us is we don't. We don't
need to. We own most ofthe skate market, you know, are
a big portion of it. Um, we put the players names on their
skates for him, but yeah,but we don't market Oh this is you
know Patrick Kane skate because he's inour vapor skate. We we just don't
need to do it that way.Are there endorsement deals anywhere anymore? I

(58:22):
mean you get yeah, yeah,like it used to be where there are
a bunch of players now. Soall those names I said earlier, those
Eastern guys Mo and Heatley and IssermanSacking, those are all endorsement deals with
those guys. And we we hadlike the best of the best, you
know. I mean we didn't haveyou because you were too expensive. But
you don't you don't want I gota pair of skates when I was in

(58:43):
Montreal I was endorsed by him.You remember Orbits Hey, Yeah, I
got two hundred and fifty dollars.Hey, we'll give you two hundred fifty
bucks if you so. Hey Montreal, Montreal. You wouldn't believe what those
guys get paid. But um so, endorsement deals right now are pretty rampant
in the NHL. They're a lotsmaller than other sports. But um all

(59:04):
the big guys have one and andI'll tell you that. You know,
we we have different guidelines and werank them by you know, market,
the market that the players in,so A, B and C markets Dallas,
Dallas, Toronto, Montreal the numberone and two Dallas and two three.
Um So, so you you basethat off of you know, location,
enrollment and hockey. I mean,I know Dallas has done a great

(59:28):
job of growing hockey around here forfor youth. Um but still C market.
Um there is nothing lower than theC market. No, not really
there there C minus. How's that? Uh yeah exactly. Um So,
so you look at the market ofplayers in if he's going to be a

(59:50):
Connor McDavid, the market that he'sin is not going to matter because he's
he's likely We call it a globalathlete, like he's recognized all around the
world. Um Ovechkin and Crosby,Uh, you know prior to that,
um, you know Mario and thoseguys. But and Gretzky was you know,
the big guy that Easton signed thechrome aluminum stick. But that was

(01:00:10):
that was like one of our oneof Easton's first endorsement deals was was was
Wayne. But so long story short, right now, pretty much nine out
of ten players is getting something fromuh an equipment manufacturer. So nine out
of ten players, they're getting something, but but not necessarily very much.
So what we do You're gonna saynine players in the league. Now,

(01:00:34):
Now there's there's the the global guys. Uh, the McDavid's, the Matthews
and aunt Kane Kane still one.I mean as they get older, you
try to bring them down a littlebit. Robertson Hayskinnon, like hay Skin
is gonna be coming up. Somebody'sgot to be knocking on his store,
right Obviously that's up to representatives thatthey have. But yeah, so a
player like him, um in Dallas, Uh, you know, he's a

(01:01:00):
he's a CCM endorsed athlete. Idon't know what they pay him, but
I could probably guess. Um,but if he was in Toronto, he'd
be getting probably, you know,ten times as much as what he's getting
here. What do you think Matthewsgets a guy like Austins. So so
there's there's a lot of parts tothese deals. They would get a base

(01:01:20):
and then a bunch of performance bonuses. What do you mean by performance more
just like a regular NHLM goal scoreror things or yeah. So a good
example for us would be, Um, kalemcar is a is a bower guy.
And I can't really tell you whatwe pay them, but he made
you can't nobody listening. He madeit. He made about twice as much
from performance bonus as a year agowhen they went when they won the Cup,

(01:01:44):
when he went on because what hewon the Norris, he won the
you know, performance do you guysgo by visibility? In other words,
if they get to this round,to that round, for that round,
No, but if they but ifthey win the Cup or go to the
Cup, they get a bonus.Okay, all right, So the top
players in the in the NHL,let's let's just say it's probably only three

(01:02:07):
three guys might be getting you know, a deal and these are not bower
guys of north of three hundred thousanddollars you know from a base and then
they get performance bonuses. Wow.So totally different than a Nike shoe deal
where they're making millions, you know. Um, so you know how hockey
is, like every year you lookat that number one draft pick and then

(01:02:28):
so so Connor Bdard. Yeah,so the kid goes, well, he
hasn't yet, but he's gonna befirst over all Chicago's you know, wins
a lottery. Is he gonna instantlyhe's gonna make seven hundred and fifty grand
I believe it is for the firstthree years? Right? Will he get
an endorsement deal? Have you gotnow? Is he already? Is he
already under contract with somebody? Yeah? So he's not, and they're they're

(01:02:50):
on the hunt. They're they're they'rebeing smart about it. Um, his
agency is really being careful about itbecause it's a big deal now because the
requirements from the man factures. They'renot just hey, you get on the
ice and score goals and we're goingto cut you a check. We we
bring them in. We bring theseguys in to what we call athlete event.
It's in the summertime. We bringin you know, seven, seven,

(01:03:13):
eight, nine players of guys thatwe're paying, and we do all
this content shooting over you know,one to two days, eight hours a
day, which they don't like todo two days. For the money you're
getting, I'm sure, yeah,you would think playing it, um.
And then we we capture all thecontent we need to and then we use
that for marketing for the next yearand a half or whatever. For those

(01:03:34):
guys UM so Bdard. As soonas their playoffs were done, they had
each company come into Vancouver and dosome sort of a fitting presentation type of
thing. Really, so that wouldhave been five companies UM. And we
just did that a couple of weeksago, and you know, we we
went pretty pretty much all he alreadyuses our stick and skates. He's using

(01:03:55):
that really light stick market though,correct. So in the NHL, well,
yeah, in the NHLUM a goodway to gauge as we keep our
own track of our own stuff,you know, but a good way to
gauge it. And what's what's prettyaccurate as gear geek, it's a it's
a website you can go on too, and they stay up to date by
by the Night pretty much on whatevery player is wearing, um and and

(01:04:15):
they're pretty pretty savvy that they cantell they've learned some stuff about our codes
and stuff like that. They couldsay, oh, looks like Patrick Kane
is using the same old stick,but he's got a new graphic on it,
you know. So they're getting prettysmart, and we might share some
intel with him every now and then. But so gear Geek, if you
go on there, we're pretty rightnow. We're number one in all categories.

(01:04:36):
We're not in helmets, but wehave the number one helmet out there,
but overall, they have more helmetguys. And we just went through
a helmet sort of revamp a fewyears ago, so we mixed all the
old models, which if we hadthose old models still, we'd by far,
you know, be the number one. So those are all gone and
we came out with three new modelsand so helmets take a little bit of
time. But but anyways, yeah, so so we are, but back

(01:04:59):
to Badar. So yeah, weall flew in and we did a full
on presentation like for his parents forthe agency on how we're going to market
him, how we're gonna build hisbrand, which could lead to more endorsements
for him. Right, so alot of people don't understand that. Um
so this is this the same,This is a special player. This is
yeah Connor McDavid. At least that'swhat the projection will be. The McDavid,

(01:05:24):
the Matthews, you know, regretsobviously, Kuchurov. Is it just
for that player? I mean,do you take the top five picks into
something like that or is it alljust the number one pick? Or is
it mean just kind of go bythe generation or the player? I mean,
letty see, so you see thedraft every year, you see what
the projection projections are. Right,so right now, one, two and

(01:05:47):
three, So one is him Fantelli'snumber two, Leo carloson number three.
Um, are they getting the sametreatment as Bedard? Two and three?
Big difference, big difference between threeand one. One three is a d
man. Unfortunately, they don't careabout us as much as they did the
forwards. Um so no, definitelynot like I think. I think and

(01:06:10):
everybody thinks that Bdard is that specialnext special player. So we we we
don't disagree with it. Um youknow, everybody has their opinion. Uh,
you know, I think I knowwhere I feel like he's gonna what
type of player he's going to be. How much input do you have on
all that? Or um, Imean, I mean we we have a
lot, like when we get tothis type of a player. Yeah,
Um, it's I So I managethe pro business for Bauer. But and

(01:06:35):
I answer to Mary Kay Messier.He was Mark Messier's sister, so she's
a VP of marketing. And thenyou know, and then from there it's
it's really CEO everybody. They're allinvolved in this in this situation. But
um two and three, it's betweenyou know, me and Mary Kay and
and my rep, one of myreps who handles prospecting. Uh so it's

(01:06:59):
like that. But but the numberone picks always a gamble. We're paying
them big money for probably we're gonnawe're gonna come out of the gates to
a three year deal. What sowhen these deals happen and I don't,
I don't want to drink. Anybodycan't can a deal? Ever? Is
there an out clause? Yeah,the assuming for both sides. But does

(01:07:21):
it have to be agreed upon orhas happens off the ice? Yeah,
it has to be agreed upon.Something like that happens. That's that's a
to that you can. Uh,you can definitely um amend the contract.
Uh So. A couple of funnythings though, is um you know there's
always a game's played clause in there. But yeah, you could like if

(01:07:43):
the player said, look, theyjust can't get my gear right, you
know, and I'm not gonna lieto him out it. Can they say
that and just try to get outof the contract. They could. We
could make it difficult if we knowthat we're making them really good stuff.
Yeah, but if you're if you'remaybe you know. So I went through
this with Jamie Ben once when Iwas with EASTONUM and he started out in
Easton. I think he started outbecause everybody on the team was in Easton,

(01:08:03):
you know, so we felt likehe had to use it. And
uh eventually, okay, Manny hebecame the captain. I'm all right,
buddy, let's let's do this.Man he was UM. I was taking
him because he switched about. Iwas taking him back and Easton. We
had a really weird skate at thatpoint. You know, he just couldn't
do it. It was at MakoSkate. UM. Not many guys used

(01:08:24):
it, but he just couldn't doit. So the deal just fell apart
at the last minute. Um,And I do not hold it against him,
you know what I mean, say, I kind of like that because
it wasn't about the money or whateverit may be, right, it was
because he just liked a certain things. Yeah, I'm gonna offer me twice
as much. I'm sorry, butwe had a relationship, you know what
I mean. So it's big onrelationships. But but but a funny one

(01:08:45):
is is you know, the numberone pick unless it's a poor draft,
like unless you know, what's yourpoor draft, which has happened in the
past. But the last the lastfew years, you know, like the
top guys have been studs. Youknow. Jack Hughes is one of our
guys. So that was kind ofa surprise thing. So so the funny
one though, you know. Andand this is Lefregner. Yeah, so

(01:09:06):
he was the next best thing youknow, since whatever. Well, so
we we cut him a huge deal. I mean, he was in a
good market at least, you know, for us. But but now his
deal is up, um, andhe's going he's going from us, bloody,
I'll do this. So but arethey now is his representative contacting you

(01:09:30):
and say, hey, let's geta new deal done or is he smart
enough to know? Okay, No, So that that process usually starts right
around now, like we we wewe start you know, mostly negotiating contracts
June first. That's that's how whenour next budget started, we've got it
all mapped out. We're like,okay, we're we're just we're going through
that process right now. So wewe've already got him basically it near nothing.

(01:09:56):
So now we got all that moneywe're pumping into you know, the
O a new guy yep. Yeah, So anyways, you know, but
Dard's gone through, He's collected allthe information from everybody, testing all the
products right now and when now doyou does the market say we need a
date by a certain time obviously inorder to get stuff ready for him,
right? Yeah? Is that isthat date coming up? Yeah, it's

(01:10:18):
gotta it's got to be here herepretty quick. Like we gave um One
Agency a deadline for Jack Hughes PosterKnock or the Hughes Family Poster Knock,
the Hughes Family. Yeah, wegot a whole big one too, right,
Yeah, I would assume it's likeone of those deals like we had
the dad's. I mean, yea, does the dad get something out of

(01:10:38):
this too as a general manager inMontreal? No? No, no,
not that you can say. Imean like Drew Dowdy, for example,
all of his endorsement money he givesto his dad. Okay, so well
they can do whatever they want.They just didn't know if if a father
and especially you know, as ageneral manager with an NHL team can do

(01:11:00):
that, I don't even you know, but but yeah, I would assume
that it might. Yeah, theStalls, they all, I mean,
can you imagine, like I know, we don't want this to happen,
um, but I mean you're lookingat the Stall brothers, you know,
as as a family, and theone that I thought with the youngest one,
is he working for a hockey company'sstalls? Yeah? Uh, they

(01:11:23):
got the four of them, right, there's one that's not playing, and
I'm I'm not sure it's going tobe better than all of them. Apparently
he's done. Yeah. Yeah,but but they've been, you know,
they've been a good family to dealwith. Eric, you know in Jordan
are two guys that I've always had, you know, hands on stuff with
for for many, many years,and they've been great to deal with,
and they're they we've been gradually,it's really hard to bring him down.

(01:11:45):
You know. There's some there's anego thing with a lot of players,
you know, and some they're they'relike, I get it, you know.
Uh, And it's great when youget that guy that gets it because
he's not going anywhere. But butsome of them, like, you know,
it's really hard. But uh,Kutrof was such a problem to deal
with with his gear. He wantedstuff that we don't make. He wanted

(01:12:06):
his own stuff, like like wetalked about earlier. So we finally made
him an all black skate, whichis what he wanted, an all black
stick, which is what he wanted, and with no representation of it.
I mean we we it's like toneon tone, so we put it on
there, but it's real hard tosee. Uh. So it's not great
for us. But but we couldturn it into something at you know,

(01:12:27):
at retail and say, okay,we're gonna launch Kutrof sticks a one time
thing, an all black bower stick. We sell him out in a in
a hurry. Um. But hebut he he became a real problem to
deal with, you know, fromfrom everybody just got really demanding and sometimes
it's best to walk away from thosetype of players. And I tell that
to some of my reps. Ihave a newer group of reps. I

(01:12:48):
got some young guys and I said, look, you know, some of
these players that you're dealing with,that you're the problems that that he's having,
that he's you know, telling youabout, and he's you know,
just a mid level player or whateverit was. Sometimes it's just not worth
it. Sometimes you need to lethim go. And I did that to
Duncan Keith. He became such aproblem for me, but he was such
a good guy. Um he justmentally, you know, messed up about

(01:13:11):
his gear. Yeah, he waswith his skates too. But but I
said, hey, ducks, Isaid, listen, here's the deal man.
I've made you everything we have onour arsenal ten times over and we
have nothing else to make you like. I can't do anything else for you,
I said, I think what youneed to do is you need to
have you know a few of these, a few of a few Bowers and
a few of somebody else on youron your racket all the times and just

(01:13:34):
go with what what's working, andhe did that and uh never changed our
relationship where buddies, you know,until this day, like I'll reach out
to him. You know, he'shiding out up and up in the mountains
in BC somewhere right. Yeah.They don't want money. He never wanted
any money. As a matter offact, he was He was the only

(01:13:54):
player in the NHL that tried totip me at the end of a season.
Tried. I didn't accept it.I didn't want to accept it out
like I'm like ducks, I guessthis is my job, you know,
but I guess I can say thisnow I go. But the bad thing
at the end of the day washe uh, you know, like he
tried to give me an envelope andI kept saying no, no, no,

(01:14:16):
no. But then I packed upmy bags. I was in Chicago,
and then I was on my wayto the airport and he sent me
texicoes. MAXI goes because before youcheck your bags, because you just might
want to check in in your stickbag. So I went in there and
there's a you know, a fatenvelope. Nice class guy and it was
the five thousand dollars classy guy,classic player, and I sent a lot

(01:14:36):
of that money down to our stickguy to bring to Mexico to the factory
workers because they're the ones that weremaking the stick the sticks for him.
They were they were pumped about thatthough. Let's let's finish up with this.
Referees do you different? Do youguys? Rep the YEP are the
referees under can they use whatever theywant? So the referees are under a

(01:14:58):
helmet deal, okay, and that'swith not a non bower we We actually
used to do the helmet deal withthem, and we would pay them,
uh, not the refs individually,but the REFS association, you know,
a fee of like thirty thousand dollarsor whatever. And we're like, all
right, you know, this isn'tdoing anything for us, and not not
like we don't want to take careof the officials, but we can use

(01:15:18):
that money for something something different.Uh. So they you know, they
did a helmet deal with another company. But I would say the majority of
them are bower skate guys. AndI'm the one that does most of them,
so we have all their specs onfile. Every summer I have a
conversation with them. The NHL basicallygives them free rein to order their skates.

(01:15:41):
They come through meum and we justbuild the NHL. Uh. So
I get on the horn with almostall of them. You know, they
track me down at some point.I'm assuming way easier to deal with than
most of them. Yeah, mostof them are. Most of them are
great. Ah. Yeah, Ihad one this year. Yeah, tell
me it's no, it's not West. I've dealt with West too. But

(01:16:02):
the funny thing about West is ifyou look at his skates, they're they're
probably about twenty years old, buthe still gets a new pair every year.
So he must have a garage fullof him. Either that or he's
Christmas He's got a pro shop andhere something. But now Wes is always
getting any you know, he's basedup there in near Boston somewhere, so
he's frequented our offices, which areabout an hour out of out of town

(01:16:26):
up in Exeter, New Hampshire fromBoston. So you go through the same
process with the referees like you wouldwith players. So what I can do
is that scanner that I use.Most of the retail stores have that scanner.
Now we've sent them all on thesescanners so if there's a referee or
official that UM calls me and says, look, I'm having some problems.
I want to try something different,blah blah blah. I'll just tell him
to go into that the closest store. They scan him and then they automatically

(01:16:50):
email you the scan. So he'llsend me the email of the scan and
then I'll call him and we'll buildthe skates like that and they just ship
them right end to him. UM, with the exception of you know,
uh well, now I think justGordy Dwyer lives here, and I know
I was I was gonna bring Gordyaout. Yeah, yeah, so Gordy
I always get him done first.He was actually the first official that I

(01:17:13):
made with his skates black and orange, you know, so I put some
color in there for him to matchhis uniform, which we do that you
know now, and some of it'ssubtle you don't really see it on TV,
but uh but yeah, anyways,so I do that for Gored because
he's a good friend of mine.Can you just vouch for these referees,
you know, it seems like itseems like every year they I think the

(01:17:36):
game gets faster every year. Itgets harder for them every year, and
they're they're not in this to picka side. They do not want to
be when the game is over,when it's Game seven, or regardless of
what game it is, the endresult, they don't want to be a
part of it. They they getan agenda here. They want to disappear

(01:17:57):
after. They just want to getin get out in their job. And
I know you have a relationship withsome of them, and um, different
from players. I mean, I'massuming I don't. I mean, I've
met Gored a couple of times,but eagle wise West might have a bit
of an ego and and he's shit, he's what he's probably ranked number one
referee, is he or something whatever. He's like, yeah, I mean

(01:18:19):
he's up there for each round.Everything's like that. But yeah, um,
you know, they're they're different.They're all I haven't really had any
problems ever, with the exception ofthis one guy this year and he's a
younger guy. Uh. Anyways,he just he had a bad experience.
He got fit somewhere else and we'renow we're making skates both in Quebec and

(01:18:42):
in Asia. Um Our Asia factoryis where they make all the retail skates,
they pump them out, they're they'regreat. Right. Um. I
feel like, you know, they'vebeen as consistent or more consistent than our
factory and come back, and that'sjust just due to how how the labor
laws and stuff are and Quebec asopposed over there. Um, it's really

(01:19:03):
difficult in Quebec at times, andespecially coming out of COVID. But uh
yeah, yeah, this one wasfunny. You know, we decided to
go the route of making it makinghis skates in Asia because his specs set
up to be pretty basic, right, and if it's basic, we're doing
some NHL guys, a lot ofHL guys, CHL guys out of the
Asia one because they're faster. Yeah. Um, and it's taken some of

(01:19:27):
the load off the Quebec factory forthe NHL skates, so we'll be able
to make them quicker. But sohis came in and he's like, uh,
you know, I'm not going touse these. They're not They're not
made in Canada, no way.Yeah. So then I then I got
I got that email from somebody atthe NHL who handles the officials, and
I'm like, yeah, you know, did you let me, did you

(01:19:47):
just take the sticker off? Andno, I mean we can't. We
can't do it. Unfortunately. Youknow, it's like, did you make
skates formal? Yeah? Well Ibasically what I did was I ended up
saying send it. I'm like,for so, I said, look,
I just got a pair of theseskates. This guy must be is he
a referee or linesman? He's areferee. He is a rough yeah,
but he's one of the up andcomers, you know, so he's not

(01:20:10):
going to be roughing in the conferencefinals here. I don't know, No,
definitely not. But but yeah,he refused. I was trying.
He refused, like he wouldn't recognizehis name, Letty could. He refused
to wear skates made in Asia.And then the NHL said, yeah,
we want these guys to be wearingskates that are made in Canada. So
that's going to be oh a challengethis year for you know, I don't

(01:20:31):
disagree. I know what their reasonsare, but um so you know we
we Basically what I ended up doingis sent him into our factory in Quebec
when they were going through and hewas reughing in Montreal. I sent him
in because it's thirty minutes away.They had the day off, sent him
in there, our skate guru gothim dialed in and then he was perfectly
happy after that. So but they'rethey're they're all pretty good. They're pretty

(01:20:53):
easy for the most part. Occasionally, you know, when you switch models,
Yeah, it can be a littlebit dicey, you know, it
could be roll the dice. Butthe good thing is we can send them
back up there if they're like,oh, they're about a house size too
big, we can take their theircurrent skates and reduce some half size without
having to build them a new pair. So it's just called relasting. So
um, it takes a little moretime, but but it's part of the

(01:21:14):
gig. Uh yeah, well,actually I appreciate there's a ton of info
today. Um, I hope againI would encourage people to to watch a
little bit of this. Uh maybenot the mess on top of the table
here, but that's okay, we'llclean that up. It is SuDS with
luds. Um, thank you forcoming in and sharing this stuff. That
you've been doing this for a longtime, and um, I've got no

(01:21:36):
personal stuff I've got Actually, youbroke a stick of mind once and you
actually gave me a new one,which was nice. You spared me.
You spared me that I did spirityou. Yeah, I did. We
weren't on the same team. Don'tany tricks, uh, cath Maxwell,
I really appreciate good, good info. Um. I could do this for
another couple of hours, but wedon't have enough booze left here. So

(01:21:57):
and and well we'll maybe next time, we'll catch up on some of the
other products, gloves and helmet usageswe've got. The more this, there's
a part two to this whole thing. And maybe Sudsy, well, maybe
we should bring Sudsy in here.You would agree with three of us should
SuDS is already looking forward to youknow what, says he said to me.
He goes, Luds, I justwant you to know this is right
at the end of the playoffs,Sudsy says. Again, we're talking about

(01:22:17):
Steve Sumner here. Um, Sudsysays me. He texts me back and
he goes, Hey, I justwant you to know I'm working, you
know, the playoffs before I retire. He goes, So, if I
come on, I can't drink toomuch. Don't worry about it. Sunday,
We're gonna make sure your retirement showbecause we're no all done. Okay
again, thank you very much forlistening to this show when thanks akin to

(01:22:40):
Herman Marshall, um, it tastesgreat less filling another episode SuDS with Bloods
next time later. Thanks thank youto Herman Marshall Whiskey for sponsoring another episode
of SuDS with Bloods. Herman Marshallproduces a small batch, handcrafted an award

(01:23:00):
winning whiskey, patiently aged in newwhite oak barrels. Whether it's their Texas
Bourbon, Texas Rye, Texas SingleMalt or their Blended Bourbon Whiskey, all
are built from the grain up,just like good whiskey should be. Make
sure you ask for it by name. Thank you again, Herman Marshall Whiskey,