WARRIOR HOCKEY ANNOUNCES THE STRATEGIC ACQUISITION OF SMITH HOCKEY INC

Warren, Michigan (May 2011) – Six years after its brand launch, Warrior Hockey remains the fastest growing hockey company in the world. To sustain this growth in the goalie protective category, the brand is announcing the acquisition of Smith Hockey Company, Inc. of Brockport, New York.

Smith Hockey Company has been a leading niche player in the goalie protective category for the past nine years. Pete Smith, company founder and one of the most highly respected and influential product developers within the Goalie Protective category during the last 20 years, will join the Warrior Hockey team to lead its Global Goalie Protective
Category as Strategic Business Unit Manager.

“Pete has been a visionary in the goalie category for many years and his fingerprints can be found on many of the most popular pads in the marketplace today. He has built a very successful direct to consumer business strictly through word of mouth and outstanding product and we are very fortunate to have him join our team and bring his experience to our goalie protective business”, says Lorrie Owen-Turner, General Manager for Warrior Hockey. “I am humbled by the incredible brand loyalty I have developed with my customer base during the last eight years,” says Pete Smith. “The opportunity to join Warrior Hockey and leverage their resources, commitment to building outstanding
product, and their unique brand positioning is an exciting opportunity. The goalie protective category has been relatively stagnant and I believe this alignment with Warrior will provide the platform necessary to accelerate and commercialize innovative design and product ideas to help the brand become the #1 Goalie Protective Company in the world.”

Warrior Hockey is excited to bring Pete’s stand out craftsmanship and innovative design to the masses. The “new” team is already hard at work to bring goalies of all ages and skill levels game-changing goalie protective equipment. Through this new collaboration, Warrior plans to create a new industry standard in the goalie category.

About Warrior
Headquartered in Warren, Michigan, Warrior Sports is recognized as one of the sporting goods industry’s premier manufacturers of innovative, high performance, cutting-edge equipment, footwear and apparel for lacrosse and hockey athletes of all ages and abilities. For more information please visit Homepage | Warrior.

Browsing during work... just caught this.
I hope Pete can convince Warrior to stop making s#!t goalie gear with bad graphics and horrible construction. I also hope that he convinces them to add a "by Pete Smith" patch to the ones he designs, kinda like Koho and Reebok have done with Leferve. I'd feel a lot more comfortable considering Warrior as a serious option if I knew which ones actually had some thought put into them.

I'm not sure I like this. I see Pete getting stomped on by corporate red tape about what materials and designs to use. I'm concerned they just wanted to buy his name, and not his talent.