Aaron Logan
If you’ve ever seen a hockey stick tossed into the crowd following an NHL game, it was probably one from Heritage Stick Co.
“Growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, my dream, my passion was always hockey,” says owner Aaron Logan.
Before becoming a CEO, Logan was following his longtime dream of being involved in sports journalism. A dream that led him to Fanshawe College, and eventually into a position at Blackburn Radio as an on-air host and broadcaster.
“I wanted to be that journalist. I wanted to be like Ron MacLean or Don Cherry, be on Hockey Night in Canada and bring the news and information from the game to the masses that couldn’t get to them.”
Logan was doing colour commentary while interviewing players and management during intermissions, expressing the importance of getting stories from all angles.
“I could have a conversation in the morning with a CEO of a company that is on the front page of a newspaper. But I could also talk to the gentleman at the end of the day that is starting up his own family business, or just got home from a shift at Hydro One. So you really kind of cover the gamut of everybody in that role.”
But new opportunities began to arise for Logan.
“Other opportunities were always kind of presenting themselves to me, and I was one that was always intrigued by what others were doing,” he explains.
Wanting to get into another area of the industry, Logan returned to post-secondary for sports administration and later took on the sales division in the golf world. But in 2005, Logan had the opportunity to start his own hockey stick business.
“There was a business here in a new market that had gone bankrupt, I bought the assets, and then kind of turned it into a different model.”
Sourced Images: Heritage Stick Co.
Describing how the need for wood hockey sticks in the marketplace was diminishing, Logan decided to create a product that would be used for promotional purposes. Heritage Stick Co. is now the leader in branded signature sticks for most teams across North America. By 2007, Logan’s company had 22 NHL teams buying directly.
“I had CHL teams, AHL teams, NCAA teams, special events, alumni, former players that were using it for memorabilia, they were all buying our sticks strictly for promotional purposes… It was just a different product than people had seen.”
And that’s one of the unique things about Heritage Stick Co., they don’t have any competition but they also created the market.
“When I started my business, I was trying to figure out what I could do to make a difference….I looked at it and I said, well, I’ve been involved in a lot of golf tournaments for a number of years with celebrities, and they get gifting. Why not gift a hockey stick?”
Their first NHL client was the Edmonton Oilers, and soon after that, more and more NHL Teams started to come on board. Over the last seventeen years of running his company, Logan says that every day he gets to live out his childhood dream.
“Being able to be around the league, around the teams and around the players that I looked up to as a child wanting to aspire into a career in sports, you just never know where your path is going to take you to and I know I’ve found my niche.”
Sourced: Heritage Stick Co.
Logan is also helping other children make similar dreams come true. For over a year, he’s been working alongside The Toronto Maple Leafs to help launch the Leafs Virtual Training Series. Presented by Lightlife, the program is an on-demand series of hockey development videos for children aged 7-15 of all skill levels.
With the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the way sports are not only viewed but played, Logan believes that programs, such as these, have the ability to be even more inclusive than ever before.
“In the past, we’d have a two week hockey school that we could have 300 kids at. Now, you could do these programs where you could have thousands of kids all around the world and they can be learning how to play hockey in their living room, in their kitchen, or out in the driveway all by simply opening up a program on their computer. We weren’t able to do that in the past, we didn’t think we had to. “
“The pandemic has moved the sports world ahead a decade.”
Sourced: Heritage Stick Co.
Even though crowded stadiums are not currently on the top ten list for pandemic safe outings, Logan says that seeing one of his sticks on the ice, whether that be on television or live in action, just seeing that it’s a part of the ‘presentation’ is amazing in and of itself. But that’s not why Logan continues to lead the market for signature hockey sticks.
“You see fans clamoring to the glass, as the first star of the game comes out with one of my company’s sticks and skates around the ice. The spotlights on them and they’ve just had maybe the game of their life or their career and they get to hand a stick made by my company over to a fan autographed. That to me gives me so much satisfaction.”
“That there’s now a small part of me, now a part of this bigger game of hockey.”
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Let’s here Logan’s opinions on The Stanley Cup Playoffs!
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