2000 PHATS/SPHEM Trade Show in Fla.

So a year later and some refinement, my sister, Robin and my family head to Orlando (I think) for the trade show and to get that bloody Disney trip checked off the list of things I must do as a parent.

Again, we’re optimistic that our ideas will be well received this time.  Now that we have one trade show under us, we feel good, but we didn’t bring a stick to this one.  Not sure why, but I must have had a good reason.

This year, we have our own booth and as before, still feel like a dork standing at my booth while I watch people come and go.  Although I’m not shy, I’m just not sure what my demeanor should be for these professional types.  I look fr familiar faces to get me into the swing of things.

I look to my left and I see Brian Heaton manning the TPS booth.  I screw up the nerve to go over and hawk my gel concept to him.  These sort of things make me uneasy because my reception last year makes me doubt my efforts.  I believe in the gel, but convincing established manufacturers to buy into my ideas is really crushing my confidence.  So I approach Brian and he’s receptive (I attribute his behavior to a proper up-bringing) and we talk.  I show him a sample gel pad and he takes it and we talk.  I get a lot of polite rebuffs, because he’s not the guy who decides what TPS is interested in and what they aren’t.  I keep the chat short because I just feel like I’m wasting his time.  But for the rest of the show, Brian worked that gel pad like it was a ‘Worry Stone’.  I thought surely he’ll see the benefit.

So some guy comes by the booth to check out my I-tech mask with the gel installed…and he’s from I-tech!!  He asks some benign questions and he inspects my mask and notices I could use a new harness.  he grabs my mask and asks me to follow him to the I-tech booth.  I’m so green, I think, “Here’s my chance to get with I-tech on my gel concept” AND “I’m gettin a new harness.” (have to sing that last part like a kid anticipating an ice cream cone), so I go skipping (figuratively) off behind him to their booth, where the guy goes to the back of the booth to retrieve something, my guess is my new FREE harness!  I get distracted by others interested in my mask and when the dust settles, that lousy sack of shit has placed new I-tech sticks on my mask!  I was completely caught off guard and walked away like I had just been fleeced at Three Card Monty…sonofabitch!

I wander back to my booth stupefied by the pantsing I just got and tell Robin about it and we enjoy a slow burn together.  See, these guys can dangle a carrot with the best of them and because I’m desperate to join forces with ANY mfr, I’m an easy target.  However, I’m now becoming wiser as to the tactics being employed by established manufacturers.  Someday I’ll tell of my experiences with I-tech.

So back to standing behind the booth looking pathetic.  As I day dream of a better time, I spot Innovative hockey’s Alan Dolling.  For me, one of the very few decent people I’ve met in my new industry.  I get an idea and I run to catch up with him.   I didn’t bring a stick because my current mfr is woefully unfamiliar with making hockey sticks and they just can’t solve my break issue, so we discussed a 2-pc stick.  I ask Alan if  ‘they’ could make me the shafts for my composite goalie stick.  His answer is yes and once again, I become hopeful.  I take it a step further and ask if Innovative could make the entire stick and his reply was confident.  I thank him for his time and rush back to my sister to tell her the great news.  Now, it doesn’t matter how the rest of the show goes, I may have solved a  issue for me and my stick.

The rest of the show is a blur and largely forgettable except for two things: I met my first fan and I saw TPS had a composite stick to show off at their booth and what do you know…it reads on the stick…RTM, which is the process I was using when I debuted my one piece carbon fiber goalie stick a year ago.  Gee, I’m glad I invited TPS over to my booth back then.  What I couldn’t figure out is how they managed to make a top heavy stick.  I mean one would expect any goalie stick to be bottom heavy because of that big blade down there, but not top heavy.  How could that skinny handle cause a top heavy feeling or should I say imbalanced?

As a side note, we did the Disney thing and I was mostly disappointed in this hyped up theme park, but my kids had fun.  Except we all got dehydrated due to small bottles of water costing $2.50 a pop!

Now we get an invite to go to the “Lets Play Hockey” trade show in Las Vegas.  Ooooo boy!  A trip to Vegas to show our wares to the pro shop people.

The venue is the cheese-eating surrender monkey’s Paris Hotel.  Christ almighty I hate those fake exterior paint jobs they put on the ceilings of  that hotel.  Ok, I cope as best I can with the environment, but now I have to somehow herd my kids around all the gambling devices as we try to get from point A-B without a suit scolding me for having my kids too close to slot machines.  Family environment my ass!  So, I’m in a bad mood in general and it’s time to sign up and get my booth stuff so we can enter the venue to setup.  Where is our booth?  Well on the bright side, it’s first thing you see when you enter this particular room, but it’s right behind the vast wasteland that was CCM.  The companies in debt up to it’s chin cups and they’ve rented like 20 10′x10′ spaces so it’s bigger than most pro shops.  They have little offices setup for final sales or maybe that’s where they took potential clients to soften them up with a rubber hose.  They had the “Brian Heaton” area setup…like a personal appearance thing.  “Come say hello to Brian and get his autograph” type thing.  Places to get your skates heated for that custom fit.  All kinds of smoke and mirror excess.  Which in turn created so much noise we had to shout to people standing at our booth and if I recall correctly, someone from their side shouted for US to keep it down.  Naturally, we laughed loud and long at that and so it was to be at this trade show…no respect.  Not even from the people that took our money for us to be there.  The “no respect” thing is a running theme–you’ll notice.

Two guys from Kenesky’s came by and acted real interested in most everything we had and placed an order for a bunch of things.  yeah.  So we filled their order and then began waiting to get paid.  I allowed the proper amount of time to pass before I began calling them to see where my money might be.  What a fucking runaround!  A working model of things to come with pro shops.  So I finally badger them enough that they send me money…in Canadian funds!  WTF?  Now I go to the bank to deposit it and that’s when I find out I’m getting shafted.  First by those two Bozos from Kenesky’s and then by Wachovia.  Now I have to put in BIG RED LETTERS…”ALL PRICES IN U.S. FUNDS”.  Another lesson learned and a little more cynical I become.

On the bright side, I meet Michael Oke and his fiance for the first time and the guy actually buys something!

On another NOT so bright side, Innovative showed up with my brand new goalies sticks!  Only trouble is, some asshole made an engineering decision without consulting us.  The bonehead altered the design of the upper paddle (supposed to be a duplicate of Kolzig’s stick).  The upper paddle now had three facets to each side.  This was also the time that Ron Kunisaki’s best bud, Mike Vaughn was interested in my stick.  Ron Kunisaki was the president of Innovative and he and Mike were tight.  So tight, Mr. K had convinced Mr V. to consider our product for his arsenal of sticks with his name on them.  OMG!  I was going to be involved with the all mighty Vaughn!  Yeah well, the funky paddle did nothing to gain more interest from V, But it did spawn conversations and negotiations, which I’ll get to soon.

So our first pro shop show was a bust.  We spent $1000 for a booth.  Slack-asses took our samples and not so much as a call the following day.  The CCM boys were true to form and the show coordinators were too.  I met Oke, who has been with me since then.  Despite giving Innovative a truckload of money to make my first real mold…they were going to be my Albatross and I was going to be their bitch…a nice arrangement.  I learned other things as well.  My agenda matter little to those who held my fate.  That pro shops were not for me, based on that Kenesky fiasco.  trusting anyone would be a slippery slope and more than likely result in my getting pregnant.  For me and my family, the best part of the show and that damn hotel was the breakfast buffet…sad really.

I remember a guy that made jerseys for the NHL telling me that “you have to be around for a minimum of three years before you do any real business with them.  ”They’ want to make sure you’re going to be around a while.”