Cashing In On Sports
Sports Fertile Ground For Entrepreneurs
By Guy Junker

If you are reading this you are probably a sports fan. You are also probably a fan of money. Few are not. That also means that at some time in your life you most likely have thought about how you could make a living through sports. For many, those dreams were limited to playing professionally, and they died about the time it was discovered that good curveballs are hard to hit or that the NFL has little use for 160 pound running backs. Some, though, had other ideas.

Most hockey fans around Pittsburgh know Tab Douglas as the host of the Penguins radio network broadcasts. He's a veteran sportscaster who at one time worked alongside Bob Prince on radio on the old Gunner Network. But in 1999, while working as the weekend sports anchor at Fox 53 TV, he bought into a hockey-related franchise called Puckmasters. It was an effort to make hockey his business as well as his passion.

Puckmasters is a Canadian based company that provides one-on-one hockey instruction on a synthetic surface rather than ice. It is much more affordable to own and operate.

Douglas' facility in Cheswick has two 16 x 40 indoor playing areas made of polyethylene and coated silicon. Players and coaches wear regular skates and hockey gear, and Zambonis are not required.

A place like this would have been great when I was a kid, when our practice options were midnight at Monroeville Mall or outdoors at dawn at South Park. But now? When new rinks are sprouting up seemingly every month?

Blade Runner's in Harmarville, just a few miles from Puckmasters, added a third rink this fall mainly for use by

the Amateur Penguins. Most new rinks that have been built in recent years have two slabs of ice so that hockey is always an option even at the same time as public skating sessions. Who needs more silicon time?

'The way of the world with kids today is private tutoring. One-on-one lessons," says Douglas.

We tend to think of private tutoring as something available only to the extremely wealthy. You know, Buffy and her equestrian training and such. But it's almost the opposite with Puckmasters, where individual instruction can be cheaper than playing the games themselves because of the expense of ice time. So the proliferation of rinks and the increase in the number of kids playing ice hockey in the area is a boon to Douglas' business.

With increased competition come more kids looking for an edge. Puckmasters can give them that. A 10 year old from Armstrong County wrote to Puckmasters after taking lessons: "Last year I scored only two goals in eight months. This year I have nine goals already and the season isn't even halfway over."

Douglas has dozens of similar letters from kids, parents and even coaches. That base of referrals lends hope to the future of his business as coaches and players pass the word along.

The first Puckmasters graduate to play in the NHL was goalie Robbie Tallas. "All summer I trained at Puckmasters and it put the confidence in me to go to Boston Bruins' camp with the attitude that I was going to play in the NHL," Tallas said.

Tallas, who was in the Penguins' organization last season with Wilkes Barre, has since played 99 games in the NHL and is now in the Finnish elite league.

Clearly this has been an interesting way to teach a sport that has always been somewhat of a riddle around this region. But that is not to say all is rosy in the synthetic ice business.

When Douglas opened Puckmasters, one was already up and running in Bethel Park. Pittsburgh, in fact, became the first city with two of the facilities. The Bethel Park location closed last December.

Douglas is not making enough money to raise his family on the hockey business alone. There have been lean months when he's had to borrow money to meet expenses. He made great strides from year one to year two, but like everyone else, has had his moments after 9-11.

"I've been told that it takes most small businesses three to five years to really prosper. I've kept my head above water,' says Douglas. 'It's hockey. It's fun. I love the sport. I've helped make so many kids and parents happy."

Sounds like Douglas has made himself happy too, if not wealthy. Most of us would settle for that. It's the reason most of us thought about getting into some kind of sports business in the first place.

Guy Junker covers sports business for Pittsburgh Sports Report.