Buff wearing city-made blades

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This article was published 24/01/2015 (3884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You’d be hard-pressed to find better exposure for your skates than putting them on Dustin Byfuglien’s feet during the NHL’s all-star weekend.

The people at Winnipeg-based VH Footwear are pumped up about having the Winnipeg Jets defenceman wear his custom-made skates in both the skills competition and the game itself in Columbus today and Sunday.

“The Jets approached us and said ‘Byfuglien is going to the all-star game, it would be a good opportunity to showcase your product.’ We showed him a couple of colour patterns and he chose one,” said Garth Smith, VH’s vice-president of sales and marketing.

“It gives us a chance to puff out our chests and say, ‘Dustin Byfuglien is wearing our skates.’ He’s our first all-star.”

Since starting up 18 months ago, VH has signed up more than 25 NHL players to wear its skates, including seven Winnipeg Jets. A couple of weeks ago, four members of the San Jose Sharks and another four players from the Florida Panthers started testing them and last week, another four from the Columbus Blue Jackets were fitted for them. Another 20 players in the KHL are wearing them, too.

Andrew Ladd, Blake Wheeler, Jacob Trouba, Mark Scheifele, Anthony Peluso and T.J. Galiardi are also in the VH stable. Around the league, goaltenders such as Vancouver’s Ryan Miller, Calgary’s Jonas Hiller and Columbus’ Sergei Bobrovsky wear them, too.

VH was founded by Scott Van Horne, a former member of Canada’s national speedskating team. He started out building speedskates and then branched off on to the hockey side. Several investors, including Smith, were brought on board three months ago with a plan to growing the company.

Smith hopes the word of mouth that has helped the company spread its tentacles across the NHL will continue this weekend.

“The players see what the other players are wearing. They’ll talk about it at a faceoff dot,” Smith said.

The hockey skate business is a difficult market, primarily because several behemoths, including Bauer, Easton and Nike, have already carved out significant niches.

VH’s biggest point of differentiation is its skates are custom-made to the customer’s own feet.

“Trying to take on those companies would be suicide. That’s not in our interest. We don’t want to be like Bauer, we’re a niche player. Our skates aren’t going to be for everybody,” he said.

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“Because it’s a hand-made custom product, we can’t produce tens of thousands of pairs to support that model. It’s a little bit more of us picking our spots.”

That’s partly because they’re not cheap. VH typically charges around $900 per pair. Whether you consider that a small price to pay for comfort depends on your feet.

But if you need a testimonial or two before you buy something, you could do worse than a few top-notch NHLers.

“Once you’ve got marketplace validation — we’re in the best league in the world using these skates — then people feel comfortable (buying them),” he said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca