ice-hockey
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CCM Hockey Turned Scrap Steel Into a $600 Million Bet - Now It Has to Fit Everyone
The Canadian brand survived a dead bicycle boom, an automobile detour and a parade of owners by learning one useful trick: turn a player’s irritation into equipment. Its new owners are betting that the next growth market is not another pro endorsement, but everyone hockey gear was never properly shaped to fit.
The 99-Year-Old Skate Company Turning Fit Into Hockey’s Next Product
Bauer changed hockey by fastening the blade to the boot. Nearly a century later, it is trying to own every millimeter between the player and the ice.
The Shark Tank Is Becoming a $500 Million Bet on Hockey's Next Generation
San Jose is rebuilding more than an NHL roster. With a generational young star, a lease through 2051 and a sweeping arena overhaul, the Sharks are trying to turn a hockey club into the Bay Area's most durable live-entertainment habit.
The Team That Sells You Its Enemies' Teeth
How a franchise named after a kids' movie became a $1.4 billion bet on live sports, youth hockey, and 100 acres of Orange County real estate.
National Hockey League (NHL)
The NHL sells a scarce live spectacle, then makes it abundant across television, streaming, merchandise, data products and 32 local markets. Its century-old advantage is not merely hockey - it is the system that turns every puck drop into rights, reach and ritual.
Bill Near
Bill Near is the founder and CEO of HELIOS, a Portsmouth, New Hampshire sports-technology company that turns hockey development into something you can actually measure. An MIT engineer who captained the school's hockey team, Near pairs an AI-powered sensor that clips to a player's shoulder pads with automated shift video so any skater - youth to pro - can see real numbers on stride speed, acceleration and effort. He built the company in 2018 alongside Hall of Famer Ron Francis, and in October 2025 raised a $2.2M seed round from a syndicate of active NHL executives and players to scale it.
Robert Potter
Robert Potter is the CEO of Oomnitza, a San Francisco-based enterprise technology management (ETM) platform that gives IT teams a single pane of glass across their entire asset portfolio. Appointed in September 2024, Potter brings over 25 years of executive leadership in technology and cybersecurity, including tenures at Mandiant, RSA/EMC, Symantec, Lancope/Cisco, and IBM. A venture partner at SYN Ventures and a Quinnipiac University board member, he is also the co-founder of the Robert & Kathryn Potter Charitable Foundation supporting mental health, cancer research, and military families. Under his leadership, Oomnitza was named one of The Information's 50 Most Promising Startups of 2024.
Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer
Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Signos, the company behind the first FDA-cleared over-the-counter glucose monitoring system for weight management. A Princeton computer science graduate and Harvard MBA, he played NCAA Division I ice hockey before building a career spanning VC at Sierra and Shasta Ventures, co-founding PR tech company AirPR (later Onclusive), and ultimately creating Signos in 2018 after his own lifelong struggle with weight and the death of his diabetic grandmother inspired him to ask: why wait until someone is sick to give them metabolic data?