Publisher's Note: Fanatics Jerseys – Made in Canada

When Fanatics becomes the NHL's on-ice jersey supplier in 2024-25, expect some of the best jerseys ever with 'Made in Canada' quality, writes W. Graeme Roustan.

When I was Chairman of Bauer, we made the on-ice NHL player skates at our factory in St. Jerome, Quebec, Canada, using the best manufacturing people in the world. These were the very best quality hockey skates we offered. The retail version of these skates were made in China, and no matter how hard they tried in China to replicate the same model of skate, they could never match the ‘Made in Canada’ quality. We knew and accepted this fact.

Nike purchased Bauer in 1995, and two of its then-Bauer employees, Serge Berard and Phil Chiarella, purchased the Granby, Quebec, Bauer jersey business and renamed it SP Apparel. After Phil passed away and Serge retired, Steve Berard took over the family business.

Later, five other Bauer employees purchased the Bauer hockey stick factory from Nike and renamed that business Heritage Wood Specialties Inc. I acquired that business and renamed it Roustan Hockey.

Steve and I both own a former Nike Bauer business that makes some of the best products in the world right here in Canada, and we have inherited these businesses from a lineage of over 100 years. SP makes jerseys for Adidas, the International Ice Hockey Federation and so many others, which will include Fanatics at the start of the 2024-25 NHL season. Roustan Hockey has made hockey sticks for Bauer, CCM, Sherwood, Vaughn, True, Christian and many more brands, all of which have ‘Made in Canada’ printed on them.

Every company that manufactures products has some small percentage of defects that pass through quality control yet fail to perform in real-life wear and tear. Bauer had some defective products, which was bound to happen when we were producing products in factories on the other side of the world. I distinctly remember the harsh criticism that Bauer received when a model of stick broke too easily, even when it represented a tiny fraction of the products we sold. We just knew that over 99.9999 percent of the product that we made and delivered performed so well that we kept gaining market share.

I have been sitting back and watching some of the criticism Fanatics has received after the announcement of their new partnership with the NHL. The complaints seem to stem from the quick-turn products, primarily T-shirts, that Fanatics is making to satisfy the real-time demand of fans. 

Remember – less than 10 years ago, if you wanted a jersey or product for a player that just got drafted, was traded to your team, or was having a breakout season, you were waiting weeks, if not months. That’s no longer the case. Fanatics completely transformed the industry to help satisfy the growing instantaneous wishes of all consumers living in today’s digital world. This has been an incredible benefit to sports fans. And even if all the complaints, many being randomly thrown around social media, have merit, they represent less than .0001 percent of the total amount of products that Fanatics sells each year, which is way below the normal product defect tolerance level.

What particularly caught my attention was all of the comments were really comparing apples to oranges. The NHL on-ice uniforms and authentic jerseys at retail will all be Made in Canada by SP Apparel in Quebec. None of the items mentioned in the articles, some more editorially questionable than others, were Made in Canada. Perhaps it is because I have factories in Canada that make hockey equipment and other items that these comments got under my skin.

But, it’s also because Fanatics has an overall excellent reputation for all of their pro and retail product lines across all sports, especially the NFL and MLB, where they have been making authentic jerseys for both fans and the players for years with the Nike swoosh on them. You haven’t seen many complaints about those products. For that extremely small percentage of instances whereby a T-shirt does not perform, I am telling you that even Bauer made products that didn’t perform, but that didn’t stop people from lining up to get their hands on more great quality Bauer products.

Fanatics makes all kinds of great products in all parts of the world, which will now include more manufacturing in Canada. In addition, they are bringing on board an incredible roster of product people who have decades of experience making NHL jerseys all the way to the CCM days.

I can assure you the former Nike Bauer, SP Apparel in Quebec will make the very best NHL on-ice and authentic jerseys that anyone has ever made, and I cannot wait for my Fanatics ‘Made in Canada’ jersey.