By Best Shift Hockey | The Market Nobody Was Paying Attention To
It's 2015. I'm standing in a Target in Minnesota — the State of Hockey, the place where the sport is practically a religion, where kids learn to skate before they learn to ride a bike, where the entire cultural identity of a region is wrapped up in a game played on ice. I'm looking for hockey clothing for my kids. Something fun, something wearable, something that says we are a hockey family without requiring us to be walking, glittering, in your face billboard.
I found nothing. Zero. Absolute shutout.
Meanwhile, three aisles over? Racks of baseball tees, football hoodies, basketball sweat sets, soccer everything. Entire sections dedicated to sports with devoted fanbases that are, let's be honest, no more passionate than the hockey community. Just better served by the clothing industry.
My flabbers were gasted.
And that moment — standing in a Minnesota Target, empty-handed, surrounded by gear for every sport except the one my kids actually played — is the moment Best Shift Hockey was born.
The NHL Was Growing. The Apparel Market Wasn't Keeping Up.
I went into full investigative journalism mode. Here's the thing about youth hockey's explosion in the 2010s: it wasn't an accident. The NHL had spent years investing in growing the game at the grassroots level, and it was working. Viewership was up. Attendance was up. And most importantly for our purposes, kids were showing up to rinks in record numbers, lacing up skates, falling in love with the sport, and dragging their families along for the ride.
By 2016, there were approximately 1.4 million registered hockey players in North America. The sport was having a genuine cultural moment — expanding into non-traditional markets, adding more girls and women to the ice, building out recreational leagues for adults who never played as kids but wanted to start. Hockey was everywhere.
Except, apparently, in the clothing section of any major retailer.
What was available for hockey families in 2015 and 2016 amounted to a few licensed NHL team jerseys, some seasonal collegiate gear, and the occasional brand collaboration that appeared for about 4 weeks and then vanished all but a few stragglers on the clearance rack. If you wanted to feel a connection with your hockey identity in "fashion" your options were essentially: Etsy, or nothing.
For a sport that had captured the hearts and schedules — and budgets — of over a million families across the continent, that was a staggering gap.
Who the Hockey Family Actually Is
Because here's what the clothing industry seemed to be missing: hockey families are not casual fans. They are not dipping a toe in. They are fully, completely, sometimes overwhelmingly immersed in this sport in a way that becomes a whole entire personality - a familial IDENTITY!
It starts young. Most hockey kids are on the ice by four or five years old. Their parents — many of whom played themselves and still suit up for rec leagues — are right there with them. The season runs October through March for most youth players, and that's before you factor in summer training, year-round travel teams, and the general reality that for a dedicated hockey family, there is no true off-season. There is just hockey, and then more hockey, and then the kind of hockey that happens in July when your kid is at a skills camp and you're in the stands in a t-shirt pretending it's fine.
These families also go to games. A lot of games. The NHL & PWHL obviously, but also the AHL, the ECHL, and college games — all of them packed with passionate fans who live and breathe this sport. Hockey is not a weekend hobby for these people. It is a lifestyle. It is a community. It is, for many families, the organizing principle around which everything else is scheduled.
A community that dedicated deserves a wardrobe & accessories that they connect with.
What the Industry Is Still Getting Wrong
Nearly a decade since I started Best Shift Hockey, the market has not changed as dramatically as one might expect. There are more options than there were in 2015 — I'll give the industry that much. But on a large scale? Hockey is still kind of the forgotten sport outside of licensed merchandise and small brands trying to make a difference.
Even our own brand — with ten years of growth behind us — is still working toward having our products in 10% of North American hockey homes. When you do that math against 1.5 million registered players, that's a goal of somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 hockey families with a piece of Best Shift Hockey in their closet. We're not there yet. That's how much runway still exists in this market.
But beyond the numbers, there's something more fundamental that the industry keeps getting wrong.
Slapping a design on a pink shirt and calling it women's hockey apparel is not it. Not even close. Not every girl who plays hockey likes pink. Not every woman who loves this sport wants to be handed the feminized version of what already exists in the market. Hockey girls and women deserve their own stuff — designed for them, not just recolored for them.
And beyond gender, the bigger issue is this: the hockey community is so deeply connected to their sport that it becomes a core part of their identity. They deserve clothing that honors that. Clothing with real design — classy, wearable, something you can put on for a Saturday errand run that subtly, quietly connects you to one of the most important parts of your life. Not a screaming logo. Not a mass-produced licensed tee on fabric that pills after three washes. Something that feels like you — the version of you that loves hockey — without announcing it from across the parking lot.
That's what we set out to build at Best Shift Hockey. Lifestyle-driven, personality-forward, everyday wearable hockey apparel for the families who eat, sleep, and breathe this game. Made with intention, on fabrics worth wearing, with designs that don't expire when the season does.
The Gap Is Still There. We're Still Filling It.
What started as an empty-handed moment in a Minnesota Target (and Kohls, and Walmart, and even an evening on Amazon) has turned into ten years of building something real for a community that deserves better options. The hockey apparel market is bigger than it was in 2016 — but it still has miles (or kilometers, eh?) to go before it catches up to where baseball, football, and basketball have been for decades.
We're working on it. One great item at a time.
If you're a hockey family who has ever stood in a store, looked around, and thought — where is our stuff?— we see you. We've always seen you. That's exactly why we're here.
Best Shift Hockey is a women-owned hockey lifestyle brand designed for the families who live the game. Shop the full collection at bestshifthockey.com and find the clothing that finally gets it.
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