The Toronto Star

The Toronto Star
Reported by: Judy Steed
Business secion, p. D05 Design/Works
Monday, November 5, 2001
Sports gear gets assist from computer
design
Technology has changed how padding and other equipment is
developed though experience, experiment still matter.
Greg Collins is a man liberated by technology.
"Technology," he says, "enabled me to design my life."
It gave him computer-aided design, helping him create virtual three-dimensional models
of Hespeler hockey pads and other sports protective gear.
Technology also made it possible for Collins to give up a large industrial design studio
and a sizable overhead on Spadina Ave. in downtown Toronto and move to a home-office
in a seven-acre wooded setting that overlooks a pond near Orangeville.
Where he can play hockey with his kids.
And test new products such as "The Puckhandler," a plastic disk that attaches to hockey
sticks to block the view of the puck and teach young athletes to keep their heads up a
style of play exemplified by the game's great centres, Wayne Gretzky and Mario
Lemieux.
For Collins, life revolves around sports, viewed from an unusual perspective: the
engineering of Hespeler shin guards and shoulder pads, the latter with an extended pad to
protect the hearts of hockey players; a revolutionary design for Schutt Sports' chest
protectors for baseball catchers; skates, both ice and in-line, and concepts for everything
from shin guards attached to soccer shoes to mountainboards called GRIT.
Collins created GRIT after hanging out in California with a bunch of wild and crazy guys
obsessed with pounding down tall mountains on rugged four-wheel boards and perceived
a market ahead of its time.
"I watched them get elbow bruises and knee bruises, and figured out how to design
protective gear for them."
The ground floor of his studio is full of Collins-designed sports equipment and computers; at one of them, Henry Alves, a graphic designer turned industrial designer, works on
a project for Collins' firm, Pace Design Inc.
Down in his basement workshop, molds of equestrian helmets for Phoenix Performance
Products, a current project, line a countertop. This is where Collins makes prototypes of
his designs for instance, crafting models of hockey pads to demonstrate what the product
will look like. (He uses local factories or machinists to help make parts. In some cases, he
sends email illustrations of drawings and patterns to Taiwan, and has samples made.)
Next door, in a long rectangular room, experiments are carried out on various concepts
developed by Collins or other entrepreneurs.
Today, it's a gizmo for indoor golfing. Collins steps in front of a wide net and hits the
ball; it bounces against the net and is caught in a sleeve that returns the ball down a tube.
"You can practice your swing all winter long," he says. "But this set-up is too complicated and too expensive to manufacture. We're figuring out how to simplify it."
The first time he saw "The Puckhandler," five years ago, it was just a Frisbee screwed to
a hockey stick the brainwave of Bob Lawlor, a truckdriver who'd joined forces with two
friends to figure out how to sell it as a training device that would teach young athletes to
keep their heads up, resulting in safer, faster play.
"We're all in our forties and we've been playing hockey all our lives," says Steve Davidson, a former baker from Bala, Ont. and now the president of Puckhandler Inc. "We're on
the ice all the time with our kids, telling them to keep their heads up, to develop a feel for
the puck on the blade. (Eric) Lindros still drops his head and that's when he gets corked."
A few years ago they received a small ($6,000) Industrial Research Assistance Program
(IRAP) grant from Industry Canada to do research and development on the concept.
Working with Collins, they refined the design, learned about the technology to make it
and bought a costly plastic injection mold that would eventually pay for itself in mass
production.
"The Puckhandler" now sells for $19.95 in stores across Canada and is being used
successfully at hockey training schools. It's a sleek, black plastic shield, strong and
flexible, attached to the stick by a firm Velcro snap. Its packaging and marketing strategy
were also designed by Collins.
What pleases him the most is that his intervention helped three guys form a business
based on an innovative idea and love of hockey. Now they're developing new products
and having a ball.
For Collins, it all goes back to the late '60s when he was a kid, hauling a heavy hockey
bag for the long walk from his home to the Don Mills arena.
He never forgot that badly designed bag and years later devised the Hockey Pac, which
had two pockets to put skates in and is, he says, "probably the best thing I ever designed."
Young Collins dreamed of becoming a professional hockey player; he was a jock with
artistic leanings. His parents were artists. What's a kid to do?
He became an industrial designer.
Cooper's design department received critical acclaim outside Canada, but at home,
"where hockey is venerated," write Peter Day and Linda Lewis in Art In Everyday Life,
"the design of hockey equipment lacks the cachet of Italian furniture or motor-vehicle
design. After all, hockey equipment is cheap, mass produced protective gear with none of
the status, mythology or fetish-quality associated with automobiles or auto racing."
But as Collins will tell you, the "warrior" design of goalie pads, for instance which he
created for Koho combine powerful graphics with stealthy strategy: "The design made
the five-hole, the area between the goalie's legs, look bigger than it is and entice the
player to shoot at the pads rather than the hole."
At the same time, the graphics have to work in all colours, potentially for all teams in the
NHL. And the design has to last at least a decade. "It's not like fashion design," he says.
"Everything we do, we do for a reason."
By 1986, Collins had gone out on his own, and worked for such firms as Daoust and
Bauer, both famous for their skates, and Rollerblade, which Collins hounded about
making in-line hockey skates. "I came away with enough work to last for a couple of
years."
Then along came Hespeler, a classic name in Canadian hockey, dating back to 1908,
when the company was founded as Hespeler-St. Mary's Woodworking Specialties.
Hockey sticks and paddles were its primary products.
In 1970, Hespeler was bought by Cooper Canada, which branded its own logo on the
firm's sticks, and the Hespeler name died. Then Steve Davies, owner of International
Sticks, applied for the trademark and brought Hespeler sticks back to life in 1990.
He hired Collins to design hockey stick graphics and protective equipment before selling
Hespeler in 1997 to First Team Sports, based in Anoka, Minn. Collins stayed on to
expand the Hespeler line.
"It was a dream project because we had complete control of the brand for three and a half
years," Collins recalls. "We built it, maintaining control of products, packaging and
identity."
Most recently, in a deal concluded only a few weeks ago, Hespeler was returned to
Canadian ownership by Gen-X Sports Inc. of Toronto. At the same time, Gretzky
announced that he has entered into a partnership with Gen-X and will play an active role
in the development of the Hespeler brand.
"Hespeler is and always has been a truly authentic Canadian hockey brand," Gretzky said
two weeks ago.
Gen-X earned $50 million in total revenues two years ago, and expects to hit $225
million by 2002. But it's operating in an unpredictable industry where trends change
quickly.
The in-line skates and aluminum scooters that were hot a few years ago have lost their
allure; suddenly snowboards are all the rage unfortunately for the young, who dislike
seeing their sport picked up by older adults.
Says Gen-X's president John Collins (no relation to Greg): "When your father starts to
snowboard, it's not cool anymore, so the kids are looking for the next hot thing."
Greg Collins is ready with GRIT mountainboards.
Fresh out of the Ontario College of Art and Design, he went to work at Cooper Canada,
designing hockey equipment from 1981 to 1985.
Picture captions:
NEW-AGE ARMOUR:
Protective equipment worn by hockey players typically cushions blows but can, in subtle ways, prevent them. On a goalie pad set, "the design made the five-hole the area between the goalie's legs look bigger than it is and entice the player to shoot at the pads
rather than the hole," says industrial designer Greg Collins.
MADE BY MOUSE: Above, Greg Collins of Pace Design with gear and equipment being planned on-screen. (DICK LOEK/TORONTO STAR)
Below, slick "Puckhandler" training device began humbly as Frisbee tacked to hockey stick.
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