HockeyStickMan Canada Receives National Small Business Award and Grant
Winners of the Tales of Triumph Contest Announced
BELLEVILLE, ON - An independent panel of business experts has selected HockeyStickMan as one of three businesses nationwide to win the Canada Post Tales of Triumph Contest for "Weathering the Storm". The award is in recognition of the company's ongoing hard work, perseverance, and determination in navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic.
HockeyStickMan will receive$10,000inCanadaPost Parcel and Direct Marketing services, as well as paid advertising and a coaching session with one of the contest judges. An independent panel of judges, made up of industry experts, selected the contest winners. The winning companies revamped their business strategies, applied innovative marketing techniques and found ways to support their communities as COVID-19 tested their business.
In March 2020 HockeyStickMan had a growing business, well established team contacts and an expanding staff of knowledgeable employees. Despite hockey being quite literally shut down around the world, they managed to pivot their business operations, maintain their pro hockey equipment buy back program, and keep their staff through the pandemic. This required the company to adapt and find other ways of creating revenue, such as selling products consumers could use at home, i.e. rollerblades, training equipment, and even yard games. The current landscape makes it impossible to plan or predict what level of inventory will be made available to HockeyStickMan through the pro team services they provide. Thus, they have had to create a cash flow strategy that enables them to be able to fully prepared for an extremely large influx of inventory at any given time, while at the same time planning to be able to meet consumer demand.
"All of the Pro, College, and Junior teams we work with are facing massive reductions in revenue and unparalleled operational uncertainly," stated Joey Walsh, President and Founder of HockeyStickMan. "We have provided equipment support services to these hockey clubs as well as reduced pricing on high quality hockey gear to our consumers for the past decade. It is our time to step up and help, we are driven to maneuver through this pandemic that is severely impacting our national pastime".
Walsh offered the following thanks: "We want to thank Canada Post and the industry judges for recognizing our hard work. I also want to point out the hard work of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) who have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic to rally support for small businesses, and the various levels of government whose support services have kept us in a position to succeed."
ABOUT HOCKEYSTICKMAN
HockeyStickMan is a family owned and operated company based out of Ontario, Canada that offers reduced rates on high quality hockey equipment. They operate with two guiding principles: offer high quality gear at excellent prices to help reduce the cost burden on hockey families, while also seeking to maximize the value they can provide to the Pro, College, and Junior hockey clubs they do business with (over 150 teams at all levels). Operations also include closeouts and manufacturer direct items to consumers at excellent prices.
