Wednesday, February 11, 2009

PuckMASTERS Shuts Down

PuckMASTERS in London has shut down and hundreds of their customers have lost their investment.

Let me be clear, PuckMASTERS is not PuckSTOPPERS, nor are they affiliated with our company in any way.



It is never a good situation when a business fails, the owners lose a substantial amount of money and customers walk away without the product or service they have paid up front for. People work hard for their money and no one can afford to lose it, especially in today's economy.



We'd like to do our part and offer to help out with special rates on any Puckmasters goalie clients. I'm not sure how we can do this, but we'll work on a plan to help those unfortunate folks out who got caught when the doors were locked today (Feb 10th 2009)



Puckmasters was a competitor, but oddly enough, our business INCREASED when they started, not at all what we expected. We respected their attempts to break into the market, although we didn't agree with some of the marketing tactics involving our own materials, but we'll leave that alone.



The market simply couldn't support such a venue, staff, rent, overhead, etc. This should have been clear in preparing the initial business plan, but they aren't the first to try something and fail.



We are one of the longest running goaltending schools in the world for a reason, we do good work, but we also understand the business and know that quality training is the focus...not a cool building and marketing. A good business knows what it does best and focuses on their core strengths, we have always done this and will continue to do so, while others fail.



These are tough economic times and the strong will survive. As cruel as it may seem, the 'thinning of the pack' will ultimately be better for the end user who spends their money with an expectation of receiving a quality product or service. As many fail, the leaders are the proven and strong who know what they do and do it best. You have our word, we'll continue to focus on the Training, not the 'package'.

We feel for those who have lost their jobs and money and wish them all the best in their recovery from this unfortunate event.