Canada's last hockey stick factory survives in face of tariff threats and globalization

BRANTFORD, Ontario (AP) — Wearing protective gloves and earplugs, a worker feeds lengths of wood into a machine that makes an earsplitting whine as it automatically cuts a groove into the end of each piece.

Nearby, stacks of wooden wedges wait to be slotted into those grooves to form the beginnings of a hockey stick. Further down the Roustan Hockey production line, other workers are busy shaping, trimming, sanding, painting and screen printing as they turn lumber into a Canadian national symbol.

It's a typical day on the job for the 15 workers at Canada's last major hockey stick factory, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of Toronto.

The operation has origins that date back to the 1800s and has survived decades of trade globalization to hang on as the last North American commercial manufacturer of traditional wooden hockey sticks. Now it's facing fresh headwinds from the trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has ripped up free trade deals in North America and imposed tariffs on Canadian exports.

The uncertainty is making life a headache for Roustan.

“You never know” what Trump will do, said Bo Crawford, the factory's general manager. “You just have to roll with it and the president of the U.S. can change his mind day to day, week to week, hour to hour. So yeah, we have to deal with it the best we can," he said.

Roustan has spent months dealing with U.S. customer worries and navigating the trade challenges.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian imports, though many goods have ultimately remained exempted because they're already covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated during his first term.

Then, in late August, the Trump administration eliminated a widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 that resulted in new uncertainty over cross-border trade, said owner and CEO Graeme Roustan.

“Even if somebody buys one or two or five or 10 sticks and it’s under $100, they’re going to be affected by the tariffs, so the jury is still out on how that’s going to impact business,” Roustan said.

Roustan Hockey's factory churns out about 400,000 wooden hockey sticks a year under the Christian, Northland and Sherwood brands, with about 100,000 exported to the United States. It also makes plastic-bladed road hockey sticks and foam-core goalie sticks.

Crawford said shipments to the U.S. have been held up for manual inspections at the border, where they've been hit with surprise tariffs, which the company's customs broker has managed to get waived.

It's not just sticks. Shipments of goalie pads, which Roustan manufactures at a separate factory in Toronto, were recently flagged for an unexpected 200% tariff, which company managers said they're trying to resolve with new forms from their shipping company.

The disruption underscores the broader trade turmoil that's left the Canadian economy reeling.

Canada's economy shrank 1.6% in the second quarter, in the first contraction since 2023 and the biggest decline since the COVID-19 pandemic. Exports slumped 7.5%, as uncertainty over tariffs and trade pummeled exports to the country's biggest trading partner, the United States.

Those figures overshadow the longer-term decline of Canadian manufacturing. Some 37,800 manufacturing jobs were lost in the year to August, according to official data.

Real investment in industrial machinery and equipment fell in the second quarter to the lowest level since records began in 1981, experts at the National Bank of Canada pointed out in a recent research note.

“How did we get here? Years of excessive regulation, and a chronic lack of ambition by successive governments in promoting domestic transformation of our natural resources—recently made worse by Washington’s protectionist agenda,” wrote economists Stéfane Marion and Matthieu Arseneau. "That failure has eroded Canada’s manufacturing base and left us at risk of becoming irrelevant in global supply chains.”

The Roustan operation started life in 1847 as an agricultural workshop, 20 years before Canada became a country and 70 years before the National Hockey League was created.

It's all that survives of the golden era of North American wooden hockey stick manufacturing in the 1970s and ’80s when there were numerous workshops in Ontario and Quebec, as well as U.S. production centered in Minnesota.

Roustan, a businessman who also owns The Hockey News and once attempted to buy the Montreal Canadiens, acquired the operation in 2019 — by then named Heritage Wood Specialties — and moved it from aging facilities in the town of Hespeler, 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of Brantford, hometown of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.

Nowadays, global production amounts to about 5 million hockey sticks a year, but wood makes up only about a tenth. No NHL player has regularly used a wooden stick in well over a decade, underlining the sport's embrace of newer technology.

Composite sticks, made of carbon fiber and other lightweight advanced materials, are now far more popular and preferred by both amateurs and professionals. But composite sticks are pricier because of the advanced manufacturing processes involved.

Meanwhile, over the years, Canadian and U.S. production consolidated or moved to Asia and Mexico amid a wider global shift by Western consumer brands in search of cheaper manufacturing overseas.

“It’s very hard to compete against some of the Asian markets and some of our competitors that are in other countries," said Crawford. “But our quality kind of stands for itself.”

Roustan acknowledges that the wooden hockey stick market is not a growth industry and, at best, production will hold steady.

“Right now, we have, you know, 5-10% of the market. But it’s diminishing every year. And the kids that are growing up today, they are all about composite. So yes, it’s a shrinking market for sure.”

At Roustan's 130,000 square foot factory, the manufacturing process is low-tech and artisanal.

At one workstation, a worker uses liquid epoxy to glue fiberglass reinforcing sheets to wooden blades, in batches of six. Nearby, another worker uses a band saw to trim dried excess fiberglass off each blade. In the paint room, sticks are dipped in white paint and then hung on a line of moving hooks to dry.

The factory's story is not just about evolving trade patterns and modern industrial practices, but also about the place that the national winter sport has in the Canadian soul, Roustan said.

“It’s important to any country to have a manufacturing base of products that you consume on a regular basis,” said Roustan. “Having a factory that makes hockey sticks in Canada really serves two purposes. One, it contributes to the manufacturing base. But two, (it) has the legacy and the tug of the heartstrings of the game that we all love in Canada.”

Wooden hockey sticks are stacked as they move along the assembly line at the Roustan Hockey factory, which is the last major manufacturer of hockey sticks in Canada on Aug. 27, 2025 in Brantford, Ontario. (AP Photo/Kelvin Chan)

A worker makes wooden hockey sticks at the Roustan Hockey factory, which is the last major manufacturer of hockey sticks in Canada on Aug. 27, 2025 in Brantford, Ontario. (AP Photo/Kelvin Chan)

A worker makes wooden hockey sticks at the Roustan Hockey factory, which is the last major manufacturer of hockey sticks in Canada on Aug. 27, 2025 in Brantford, Ontario. (AP Photo/Kelvin Chan)

Wooden hockey sticks are stacked as they move along the assembly line at the Roustan Hockey factory, which is the last major manufacturer of hockey sticks in Canada on Aug. 27, 2025 in Brantford, Ontario. (AP Photo/Kelvin Chan)

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — The images of the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams walking off the court for the final time last season couldn’t have been more different.

There was joy as Paige Bueckers led the women’s squad to a record 12th national title. The men’s basketball team’s dreams of winning a third consecutive championship ended with a two-point loss to eventual national champion Florida in the 2025 NCAA Tournament.

Both teams went into the offseason with questions to be answered.

Bringing back a nucleus led by Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong had the women’s program in a familiar position of being a top title contender. The defensive deficiencies that plagued the men's squad during a failed quest for a 3-peat needed to be addressed.

So far, so good. UConn is the only program ranked in the top five in both national polls. The women's team has won 34 consecutive games. Saturday's victory at Georgetown was the 14th straight for the men's program.

“There is a comfort level,” UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. “You are also stepping into a program where there is a set of standards that you have. When you first get in here, you are not sure, ‘how do we do this?’ You spend more time watching rather than doing. It takes a little bit of time, a little bit of talking from the coaches for those kids to get a little more comfortable, a little more assertive.

“It may be a little bit easier on the guy’s side because some of those guys are 18-19 years old and they are men almost, they played a lot of basketball and they have aspirations to be pros. I think there is a purpose for them being at UConn. For us, sometimes they know they are going to be here for four years so there is, ’I’ll wait my turn.”

Braylon Mullins missed six games before debuting for Dan Hurley’s Huskies in a late-November win over Illinois. Blanca Quinonez was sidelined for the first two women’s games.

They certainly have made up for lost time. Quinonez’s stats per 40 minutes aren’t far off from what reigning national freshman of the year Sarah Strong put up last season. Among the UConn women’s basketball legends, they come closest to what Nykesha Sales accomplished as a freshman on the first national championship teams for the Huskies. She is averaging 10.8 points per game heading into Monday's matchup with Notre Dame,

On the men’s side, Mullins and Eric Reibe combine for 35.3 points per 40 minutes. That’s the highest total for a pair of UConn men’s basketball freshmen since Ray Allen and Doron Sheffer’s mark of 38.9 during the 1993-94 season.

No freshman had more pressure than the 7-foot-1 Reibe when injuries forced UConn’s starting center Tarris Reed Jr. to miss the Arizona and Kansas games. Reibe averaged 13.5 points and six rebounds in those two games. He is contributing 7.1 points and 3.9 rebounds in 16 minutes this season.

“He’s just got an amazing spirit about him,” Hurley said. “He’s a lot like Donovan (Clingan) in a way where the guy just comes in and he’s just got this big smile and so much joy when he plays ball, and in a large part, he saved our season.”

The women’s program needed another ballhandling guard after the departures of Bueckers and Kaitlyn Chen. Getting some defensive help in the post was another priority.

The additions of former USC guard Kayleigh Heckel and Serah Williams, a double-double machine at Wisconsin, have proven to be perfect for the top-ranked Huskies. Heckel is one of six UConn players with at least twice as many assists as turnovers.

Williams isn’t approaching the numbers she put up at Wisconsin, but the former Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year does keep Strong from having to battle in the low post on defense on every possession. Her arrival was one of the reasons why this was viewed as one of Auriemma’s deepest teams in recent memory.

“I’m not there yet, but I definitely understand my teammates more and how they like passes, how they like ball screens, where they like to get their shots off,” Williams said. “I think that was a part of the reason why I came here just to see what it takes to be on that other side.”

Hurley credited Georgia transfer Silas Demary Jr. for changing how the third-ranked Huskies play defensively. The 6-foot-4 Demary had a triple-double against Bryant and had a recent six-game stretch in conference play when he averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 assists. His best game came in an overtime win at Providence when he had 23 points, 15 assists and five steals. Demary is one of five double-digit scorers for UConn. He also leads the Huskies with 116 assists and 34 steals.

“Being a point guard here, it comes with a lot of responsibility,” Demary said. “I think the coaches are putting me in the position to keep trending in the right direction like Shabazz (Napier), like Kemba (Walker), even Tristen (Newton), those are guys who made plays and were winners. I have to keep making the right plays and keep being a steady point guard.”

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DePaul Blue guard Layden Blocker (2) is guarded by UConn guard Silas Demary Jr. (2) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

UConn guard Braylon Mullins shoots over DePaul Blue guard RJ Smith, left, in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)