Inventor Eyes Big Leagues After Lucky NHL Product Placement
Every Vancouver Canucks hockey fan had sweaty palms Tuesday night when, in the dying moments of the Vancouver-Dallas playoff game, Vancouver defenceman Willie Mitchell swept the puck from his team’s goal line, preserving a Canucks win.
Richard Findlay had reason to be more grateful than your average fan. In multiple replays from the camera tucked inside the net, viewers saw repeated closeups of the product Findlay invented and Mitchell uses on his stick: BladeTape.
BladeTape consists of two cross-hatched rubberized plastic strips that a player applies to either side of a hockey stick blade. It provides shock absorption, less drag on the ice and a better grip on the puck, the latter a problem with the new one-piece sticks made of composite-materials.
Findlay first came up with the idea a decade ago, and experimented with wrapping a bicycle inner tube, condom style, over his stick. The one-piece composite sticks weren’t prominent then, so Findlay shelved the idea for nine years. Last spring, Findlay pulled out his old files and, with the encouragement of his wife, pursued the idea of making a product that would make these sticks less lively.
As a marketing ploy, Findlay went to local ice rinks and handed the product out to kids. Later, when he approached stores, he found out the kids had asked them to stock the product.
In its first six months of business, BladeTape has done more than $100,000 in sales. The plug on Hockey Night in Canada will surely cause that figure to rise.
Photo by cbc.
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