Brian's Factory Tour

I kicked off my goalie equipment factory tour last week by visiting Brian's Custom Sports - a small factory located in a 90 year old building on the banks of Lake Ontario in Kingsville, ON. My guides for the factory tour were Reo Roy and Ben Ward - the two main equipment designers for Brian's - and afterwords I met with Graham Watson (Business Manager and long-time industry legend) and Chris Joswiak (Pro Manager). Reo and Ben spent about 1.5 hours taking me through the factory, showing me how the gear is made, and going over the design intricacies that go into each model, while Graham and Chris spent time with me going over new lines. All in all it was a great experience that set the bar high for the rest of my trip.

I could write a ton about the day, but it's probably best just to show you pictures and include descriptions of what you're seeing. I'm happy to answer any questions about the Brian's tour, so please send me a message if you'd like more information.

Foam and Leather Storeage: All foams and leathers are stored in a small room at the beginning of the production floor. The leathers come from many different manufacturers, but the foams come from a factory down the road that is also owned by Brians. This is why you won't see the Briotek or "E Foam" in any other brand - the foams are exclusive to Brians!

Dies: The dies, or metal plates used to stamp out the leather or foam pieces used to make the gear, are all stored just around the corner from the foam and leather room. This shot shows just a small section of die storage, so you can imagine how many pieces it takes to make a piece of gear. Add this to the fact that Brian's keeps most dies from past models - there are a lot of dies here!

Leather is cut for the face of a Sub Zero leg pad, and stitching has been applied to form the SZ logo. The stitching operation takes place in a building next door.

Once the leather and foam for each custom piece of equipment has been cut, the parts are placed into separate bins (one for leg pads, one for catchers, one for blockers) with individual tickets attached to them. This way, both the pieces and the construction options can be kept together as the gear moves through the production process. Different colored bins represent different pieces of equipment (catch gloves go in the red bins, blockers go in blue bins). The bins are stacked 4-5 high behind the white board so you can see how much work Brian's is getting lately! Leg pad pieces move through production in laundry baskets.






Catch Gloves:

Here we see the internals of a Sub Zero catch glove.

The finger side of the palm, with the palm facing up. The green foam is a special stinger protector that does not compress over time. Ben was telling me that he put a 15lb weight on this foam pad for quite about a day, and when the weight was removed the pad went back to it's original shape.

The underside of the palm, face down.

This pictures shows the palm, face up, with the plastic finger protection attached. The plastic piece on the left is the glove thumb. Notice that, although the glove has a solid cuff, the thumb and the cuff (not pictured) are two different pieces. This gives the cuff more flex than a traditional one piece.

This picture shows the palm after being sewn into the leather.

The completed palm and cuff.

Once all of the pieces are sewn together and stitched with logos, the glove is then laced together by hand. On an average day, this guy can put about 10 gloves together.

This glove, however, takes a lot more time to make. As you'll see in the 3rd picture, the glove is being created for Manny Legace who is now playing in the AHL.

Manny uses a much older model and according to Brian's staff, it takes 3x as long to make his glove as it takes to make a Sub Zero glove.

Once the glove is made, it is put into this simple convection oven for about 15 minutes at low heat. After it is baked, the glove is placed on this home-made "break in" machine that opens and closes the glove for a while. This makes the gloves seem somewhat broken in when they are purchased. Watch the video below to see the break-in machine in action!






Blocker construction:

The blocker board, made of HD foam (white layer) with softer HD foam underneath. I can't tell you how light this board was - it's almost like holding nothing at all.

Blocker parts all stitched together with the back open. Though you can't see it, there is a soft foam piece that sits underneath the blocker board leather between the HD foam board and the leather. This softer foam keeps the white HD foam from denting. If HD foam dents, then it can start to crease and bend over time - the softer foam helps stop this from happening.

The underside of the blocker being sewn to the top side. An opening is left in the back where the blocker board goes in.

Blocker before the board is inserted.

Luckily for me, I walked into blocker production just as Jaroslav Halak's new blocker was being made. Notice in the picture above that he changed the coloring of the claw marks from Yellow/Royal to Royal/Yellow. I think I like this new color scheme better.




Leg Pads:

The leg pad production line. The ladies who work here are true professionals. I was amazed at how well, and how quickly, they put everything together.

The face of a Sub Zero leg pad ready for outer roll stuffing (see the video below showing how this is done).

Inside of pad, knee cradle, and leg channel ready to go.

Just like the blocker, there is a thin piece of softer foam that is attached to the underside of the pad face to protect the HD foams of the pad.

To insert the softer foam into the pad, a small opening is cut into the nylon backing of the pad face material (my finger is inside this opening). The pad is then inserted into the opening.

HD foam leg pad boards for the Sub Zero pads - ready to go! Once the pad back and face are sewn together, these foam pads are slid inside from the bottom up. Everthing is then sewn completely together, and then the binding is put on the top and bottom of the pad at the final step.








New Products and Cool Stuff:

You may have seen this set before, but seeing them on the internet and seeing them in person are two different things. According to Reo, many times these patterns can be cut by a computer driven cutter, but sometimes the patterns need to be cut by hand. This set was cut by hand and attached by the master craftspeople at Brian's. Simply awesome, and a testament to the fact that Brian's is truly a custom pad company.




Women's Line of Pads:

Here's a shot of the new Women's line of gear that Brian's is coming out with. The leg pads are more flexible than traditional Zero G's, the foot scoop is shorter.....

...and they have all nylon straps for reduced weight.

The inside of the thigh rise features a "flex chart" that shows how flexible each break is. The more yellow chevrons you see, the more flex is in the break. A = Ankle, K = Knee, T = Thigh






The gloves all have intermediate sized palms. They were developed in conjunction with Kelly Dyer - former USA Hockey Women's goalie and current Brian's pro advisor. The pink lacing and strapping is for marketing to women (though any color is available, of course) and they have a really cool look to them!



New Sticks for 2012

New hybrid composite sticks coming in 2012.

More great things on the horizon from Brian's, and that news will be posted as soon as they give us the go-ahead!

Next up...the Vaughn Factory Tour!

thanks man for taking your time to make this for us its very cool