Bladetape in the Paper

Tapping into BladeTape

Original Article printed in The Province® Newspaper

Entrepreneur waits for payoff

Jim Jamieson, The Province
Published: Thursday, October 09, 2008

A dozen years ago, Richard Findlay sat in a postgame dressing room dreaming about a product that would improve the game of hockey.

The product would be simple enough and useful enough that every hockey player would want it and Findlay, having made his mark in the game, would sell the rights to a massive multi-national and walk away a zillionaire. After actually launching the company about two years ago, everything is going as planned -- except for the zillionaire part.

Findlay, a Vancouver resident, is the president and majority owner of BladeTape (www.bladetape.ca), a product that replaces traditional hockey tape on stick blades. Unlike regular tape that gets wrapped around the blade, BladeTape consists of two peel-and-stick swaths of cross-hatched thermoplastic rubber that is stuck on both sides of the blade, with about a three- millimetre gap at the bottom.

The advantages, says Findlay, a one-time Canadian collegiate hockey player, are superior grip on the puck, better durability, no ice buildup on the bottom and -- key with composite sticks -- improved cushioning on hard passes. The product retails for $9.99, but lasts about 15 games.

Findlay's tape now is sold in most independent hockey stores across the country and also has distribution in the U.S., the U.K. and all the European hockey-playing countries.

"The goal for me 12 years ago was to put the Nike swoosh on this thing and sign it off and collect royalties," laughs Findlay.

"I had a dream, but really none of the details. Even going into it hard the last two years, I had no idea I'd be sold worldwide. I go into a rink and I see guys using a product that I put into the marketplace. What a thrill! I'm kind of changing how the game is played."

The product has made some NHL inroads -- Canucks defenceman Willie Mitchell, Minnesota's Nick Schultz, Matt Cooke in Pittsburgh and Jody Shelley of San Jose use BladeTape, as does goaltender Chris Mason of St. Louis. But Findlay's bread and butter is recreational and minor hockey players. He sold 80,000 units the last fiscal year and sales are up 260 per cent in the first two months of this year.

Findlay admits there have been a few serendipitous events in the evolution of his company, but probably the most significant was a chance encounter with former Canucks GM Brian Burke. He sold Burke on the product and he became a minority investor. That led to some buzz at the NHL level and BladeTape's big break came on a Hockey Night In Canada plug from host Ron MacLean during the 2007 playoffs.

"Ron doing his thing was the catalyst," says Findlay. "It has been a very steady growth since then." Seventeen months later Findlay has moved his production facility from the garage of another partner, Tim Ferguson, to a place in Richmond with three full-time workers.

The latest breakthrough has been the acquisition of NHL licensing -- BladeTape is now available with the logos of 20 NHL teams -- and licensing from VANOC that will allow 2010 Olympic and Paralympic designs.

Of course, all of this costs money. Despite sales of about $785,000 since BladeTape hit the market 26 months ago, the company is still looking for its first profits.

"I'm still in debt, but I hope to get out of the hole by Christmas," says Findlay, who also runs an established landscape architecture business. "It's a lot of weekends and late nights, but that's the living-the-dream part of it."