Report: Cost of skates and hockey gear to “increase significantly” after major deal today

TSN investigative reporter Rick Westhead reports today that hockey equipment manufacturer CCM is set to close on its sale to a private equity firm.

Westhead reports that the company will be sold for $570 million and that fellow manufacturers Bauer and True Hockey are expected to explore sales in the coming months. The end result will be that hockey players will be paying more to buy gear in the near future. Westhead reports that the price of skates and equipment is expected to increase significantly as a result of these sales to private equity.

Great news for investors, bankers and lawyers... bad news for hockey parents and their children.

But really... what else is new?

For three decades now the cost of playing hockey, even just recreationally, has ballooned to the point where lower and middle class families can no longer participate in the sport. It's a sport for rich kids only in 2024 and it looks like things are about to get even more costly. At the risk of sounding like a tired old man, I long for the days when all the kids in the neighborhood played hockey simply because we all loved it. Now, only kids born into privilege get the opportunity to lace up the skates.