A Hockey Business Idea: From the Locker Room to the Boardroom

Statement of the obvious - I am a hockey fanatic and obsessed equipment gearhead. I pinch myself that I get paid to be the marketing manager at ProStockHockey.com and my job is to obsess about all things hockey. Prior to this job, I was already obsessed about all things hockey but didn’t get paid to do it – huge bonus! So, like many other hockey players, I had a normal non-hockey day job and would feed my passion outside of my work. Part of my outlet was a Twitter (now “X”) account where I tracked and commented on the sticks and gear of NHL players. Unbeknownst to me at the time, one of my few followers was a guy named David Duerr, the CEO of ProStockHockey.com.

In February of 2018, completely out of the blue, I received a DM from David asking if I’d be interested in coming to work for ProStockHockey.com. And now this company I joined just celebrated its 10-year anniversary, so I’d like to celebrate this milestone by sharing our behind-the-scenes story with our customers.

Here goes …

During a winter blizzard in 1980 near Buffalo, the schools were closed. So, 14-year-old David Duerr found his way to the local ice rink in North Tonawanda, NY to skate and shoot pucks. The Sportsplex, as it was known, was at the time the practice facility for the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. Duerr recalled that a man was yelling to him to skate over to the rink door. The gentleman was Frank Christie, the head equipment manager and trainer for the Sabres. Christie told Duerr that his staff couldn’t get to the rink due to the storm and he needed help unloading and setting up all the gear for the players who were able make it in to practice. This was the moment when the young hockey fanatic Duerr found out that the sticks and gear the pros used were not the same as what was sold in the retail pro shop. The elite hockey professionals all had custom “pro stock” equipment. Over the next few years, Duerr became consumed with his new unofficial “Stick Boy” role at the rink when the Sabres were practicing, and Christie would compensate him with an endless supply of sticks and gear.

The gig ended when the Sabres moved to a new rink and Duerr no longer could play hooky from high school, but his obsession with the gear has lasted a lifetime.

Fast forward about 35 years …

At age 58, Duerr is still an avid beer league hockey player and also a hockey dad with two sons who play Division I college hockey. But he is also an accomplished entrepreneur who built several successful companies in various industries, including furniture distribution, pharmacy services, wireless broadband and marketing services.

Duerr said, “For years, I’ve tried to find an opportunity in hockey to combine my love for the game and business, but I could never find the right fit that made good financial sense.” That changed in 2014.

That spring, Duerr, the CEO of Straight North, a digital marketing and web development agency in Chicago, went on an exploratory visit to the Detroit marketplace to meet with the owner of a hockey retailer with several locations who was considering selling at the time. Duerr recalled, “I spent a few days looking at the operations and concluded there was nothing unique or compelling for acquiring this company.” But on his way back to Chicago, he stopped at Joe Louis Arena to say hello to a friend, Paul Boyer, who is the head equipment manager for the Detroit Red Wings.

During that visit, the Red Wings had just arrived back after an extended road trip, and Boyer was opening shipping box after box of sticks, gloves, skates, etc. Duerr, still a gear freak, was amazed with the amount of new sticks and gear and recalled Boyer explaining that these are the best hockey players in the world and they get whatever they need to be the absolute best they can be every night. Duerr asked, “What do you do with all the excess that doesn’t get used”? Boyer replied, “Managing the excess is a huge pain, especially during the season when we have no time. So it just gets stored and eventually we do a sale or try to liquate it during the summer.”

Boyer took Duerr to a large storage room at Joe Louis Arena to show him what piled up over the season. Duerr asked Boyer if all the NHL teams have this same issue with the abundance of excess sticks and gear, and Boyer confirmed it was a leaguewide issue. That’s when Duerr thought to himself, “there’s a business opportunity here!”

The pro stock hockey idea began to come to life. Duerr returned to the marketing company he leads in Chicago and organized a meeting with his partners. He described the problem and pitched that there might be an opportunity to aggregate and professionalize the pro stock equipment market by buying all the players’ excess gear from NHL teams at below cost and then remarketing online to amateur hockey players at about half the price of comparable retail equipment.

The Straight North team went to work brainstorming all the “to dos” to take this from concept to a real company. It was an exhaustive list, but Duerr, who was no stranger to start-up companies, was extremely optimistic that this could be a real winner because there was so much opportunity to be unique, different, fun and engaging, while also helping lower the cost of hockey gear while making it easy for the teams to liquidate their unneeded products.

Duerr recalled the most remarkable accomplishment of our Straight North team was our speed to market, “from idea to launch was only about 120 days. There were a thousand things to do – name, branding, social media, designing and building an e-commerce website and then all the operational requirements, including space, photography, boxes, shipping and receiving.”

And the most important – buying inventory!

Armed with new ProStockHockey.com business cards, the company started the outreach process. “The first few pitches were a little chilly because teams had been made promises before and there were plenty of horror stories out there that some equipment managers were skeptical,” Duerr said. He was fortunate to know a few industry insiders, who were helpful at making introductions. And the timing was perfect. Every year, the equipment and training staffs hold their annual meeting of the Professional Hockey Athletic Trainers Society and the Society of Professional Hockey Equipment Managers, known as PHATS/SPHEM. The meeting was critical to see if there was a legitimate business opportunity and to determine the best way to meet the who’s who in the hockey industry and build relationships.

By the end of the tradeshow in Orlando in June of 2014, ProStockHockey.com had purchased inventories from its initial teams: the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues, Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets.

The new company had to figure out how to get all this gear transported back to Chicago. “We were marketing and finance guys,” Duerr said. “Manually dealing with thousands of different sticks and piles of gear was new to all of us. We had to quickly build an operation and infrastructure to transport, receive, inventory, warehouse and ship everything. It was nuts, but at record speed our team figured it out.”

On September 6, 2014, ProStockHockey.com went live, and on its first day received 22 orders. The next day, it followed up with four sales and the day after that only three.

Duerr reflected on the early days. “Attracting customers to an unproven eCommerce business and convincing them to buy is so difficult,” he said. “Marketing is expensive and there’s no silver bullet and time is always working against you. The expenses and risks are higher than forecasted and the revenue never comes in as quickly as you think – never.” He added, “There were days when we had zero orders! B2C search engine optimization takes time even for a company that does it for a living.”

But now, 10 years later, ProStockHockey.com has leveraged the talents of its parent company to rank at the top of the search engines and has become a leading disrupter in the hockey equipment distribution industry by building a large, fanatical and loyal following of over 100,000 customers.

To give you more insight from our humble beginning to today, here are some questions I am asked all the time (and even after working here six years, I still have a few questions of my own) — so I figured I’d let David answer them directly for the blog post.

STATHOPOULOS:

First, I need to take a step back from before my time here. How was it possible that it only took 120 days to take this business from idea to launch?

DUERR:

Well, we had a huge head start because of our digital marketing company,  Straight North. We had 100 talented employees who specialize in the exact needs of this startup company – branding, messaging, website design and development, social media, SEO, paid search, e-mail marketing, as well as traditional advertising. So we were leveraging resources that we already had in place, which allowed us to move quickly. Our challenges were more operational. Our first hire was an operations manager whose job responsibilities were basically figuring it all out with little to no direction. He did an amazing job!

STATHOPOULOS:

Looking back at the last 10 years, was there anything in particular that was the most critical to ProStockHockey’s success?

DUERR:

That’s easy, yes, it is the support of the NHL teams’ equipment managers. Without the relationships we built with them over the years and the value we brought to the teams, we’d have no business. These guys work 24/7/365 and are always connected to make sure their players have whatever they need to perform. We play a very small role, but we do make it easier for them to manage and clean out the excess gear from their locker rooms and provide material money back into their equipment budgets. We obviously communicate and work with our teams all year round, but the annual summer SPHEM/PHATS meetings are so valuable to us as well. We get to see everyone in one place in both a business and social setting versus during the chaotic and stress of the season.

STATHOPOULOS:

Why do you think our hockey company became so contagious with our customers?

DUERR:

First, we provide our customers with access to scarce products they can’t buy at a traditional retail store, and at a much lower price. These sticks and gloves were built for guys like Connor Bedard, Roman Josi, Artemi Panarin, Patrick Kane and Jack Hughes. So that in and by itself is pretty cool. But our customers are amateur hockey players and most on a budget. They are not collectors; they are users of the gear and they want what the pros use. In addition, we have great online and telephone support that our customers really value – we call it P-Com for “personalized e-commerce”. We ship almost every order same day and always toss in an extra thank you inside the box like free hockey tape. We strive to make it easy and fun to order from us and look at every interaction or order as an opportunity for our customers to have an awesome experience.

STATHOPOULOS:

In 10 years, we went from no customers to over 100,000 and you always preach internally that we have such a marketing advantage so let’s use it. What do you mean by that?

DUERR:

The biggest marketing advantage we have against our competitors is we have an engaging reason to communicate something really cool every day – no one else does in the hockey equipment retail space. We announce new inventory releases almost every day. For example, Monday is L.A. Kings sticks, Tuesday is Nashville Predators skates, and Wednesday is NJ Devils gloves and so on. So our thousands of e-mail and app subscribers get an unpredictable marketing announcement that drives them to our website with a sense of urgency before it sells out. This is supported with thoughtful and engaging social media content. We put a lot of organization into our marketing plan and schedule, usually as far out as 60 to 90 days.

What we also realized very early on is that our best advertising was our customers. A guy would walk into his locker room with a Steven Stamkos stick and pretty soon after that 15 of his teammates were buying from our website as well.

STATHOPOULOS:

So does ProStockHockey not have any competitors?

DUERR:

Funny, I wish. There’s a lot of competition, which keeps us constantly being creative and evolving as a company. In business, you can never stand still.

In the “pro stock” arena, I believe ProStockHockey.com is the leader in the United States. Up in Canada, there’s a company named HockeyStickman, which does a good job. We definitely compete with them on the buy-side probably more so than the sell-side in our different geographic marketplaces. While we do sell internally, the shipping costs and currency differences create hurdles, so over 90% of our sales are in the United States.

Traditional retailers both online and physical stores are competitors as well – any place a hockey player can buy sticks and gear, I view as a competitor. In that space, the 800-pound gorilla is Pure Hockey, and they are exceptional. I’d guess they own 50% to 60% of market in the US. I have a lot of respect for the company. There are gaps in our inventory because we are buying what the teams are selling, so we won’t always have what a customer needs. When our customers have a need that we can’t fulfill, then they will go to a retailer. That’s unfortunately the biggest challenge with our business model is we don’t have access to unlimited inventory.

STATHOPOULOS:

So why won’t the hockey equipment manufacturers sell to PSH directly to fill inventory gaps?

DUERR:

ProStockHockey doesn’t fit into their distribution model. Think of us as a cross between Neiman Marcus and “Sanford & Son”. We are like a closeout company, similar to T.J. Maxx but with what I hope is a sexier brand appeal. But a big part of our value proposition with our customers is being able to access premium products used by professional NHL hockey players, but at a low price. That’s different with manufacturers and distributors that sell the latest products at MSRP prices.

We do from time to time get access from the manufacturers to excess samples, overruns, off-year models and products made for other leagues.

When we first came on the scene, the manufacturers like Bauer, CCM and Warrior, as well as the retailers, didn’t seem to care much for us, to say it mildly. Today, I think they respect the company we have built, but probably still wish we didn’t exist!

STATHOPOULOS:

In addition to ProStockHockey, we also own another hockey website named GearGeek.com. Talk about the purpose of that website.

DUERR:

GearGeek.com tracks all the hockey equipment used by every NHL player and presents it in a lot of different ways to our audience – by manufacturer, team, position, salary, etc. We keep each player’s gear current every day. These guys make lots of changes. Last year, we made over 7,000 equipment updates throughout the season. It’s an enormous amount of work!

In the early days, the “gear geek” idea was supposed to be integrated into ProStockHockey.com to add credibility, but the undertaking was just too big, so it was put on the back burner a few years. It was a beast of a project, and it continues to be, but we have a vision that it will eventually be the go-to website and resource for hockey players to research sticks and gear and make buying decisions. Right now, we are just scratching the surface. This has been a fun initiative and I’m very excited to see where we are with it in a few years.

STATHOPOULOS:

Since you still play hockey and are the ultimate gear geek with access to everything, tell everyone, what’s in your bag?

DUERR:

Oh boy, that changes daily! I am trying new sticks and gear constantly but right now here goes:

Skates: I’ve always been a Bauer Vapor guy but several years ago I tried CCM skates for the first time, Super Tacks AS1Pro, and I just kept using them. I once had about 3-4 different models of skates in the rotation but stayed with my Tacks for quite some time. I did switch out the holders to the Bauer Tuuk and Pulse TI steel. However, I have a new pair of Bauer HyperLite2 ready to go and I’m excited to try them out.

Gloves: Warrior Alpha DX with Clarino palms. I’m a big fan of the Warrior gloves.

Helmet: Bauer Re-Act 150

Visor: Oakley 831

Stick: This product category is totally unfair because I’m switching literally every week and have so many in the rotation. Right now probably a big shocker, I really love the unreleased Sherwood Rekker Morph Pro, it is coming in 2025. It’s new and has different mandrel shape to it and an amazing pop. Keep an eye on Sherwood. My “comfort stick” I tend to frequently migrate to is the CCM JetSpeed line. I like the older model FT4 more than the current FT7 but I am a big fan of the JetSpeed line. The Warrior Alpha line I’ve always liked too. Warrior made Marian Hossa a few “science experiment” samples years ago that I was able to snag which still to this day were my favorite sticks ever.

Pants: I’m a girdle guy and prefer the older model Warrior Dynasty. I do switch around the shells between Warrior, CCM and Bauer for no other reason than I just like to and see if anyone notices on my team. Of course, no one has ever said a word, but I continue to hold out hope.

Elbow Pads: My old smelly Reebok 20k Pro. I’m never changing. I will be buried with them on me.

Shin Guards: CCM 21K Pro. Lots of NHLers use them so why not me? I love them. 

Shoulder Pads: Sherwood 5030. The best!

STATHOPOULOS:

So something from everyone except True?

DUERR:

You said today! I really like the True Catalyst 9X3 stick a lot and it finds its way into the rotation. I used True skates years ago when they were VH, pre-acquisition. I’m overdue to try again. But I will for sure. A lot of NHLers swear by the True skates and the company dominates in goalie skates with over 75% so they are clearly doing something right.

STATHOPOULOS:

Congrats on ProStockHockey’s 10-year anniversary! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share in this vision and spending time with me to share our story with our customers and the hockey community.

DUERR:

Thank you! Building this brand and company has been so rewarding for all of us at Straight North. Still to this day when I see someone in a rink wearing a ProStockHockey.com sweatshirt or hat I get such a feeling of pride that we have built something very special. I love introducing myself to customers in swag, thanking them for their business and talking hockey sticks and gear!