When Rogers Hometown Hockey features Sarnia, Ont., in two weeks, it will also highlight a Waterloo-based startup that aims to revolutionize the way coaches interact with their players.
ISports Development will be featured in the national broadcast on Dec. 20. And it is also scheduled to be showcased when the 2016 Scotiabank Hockey Day is broadcast on Feb. 6.
The reason this roughly-one-year-old company is creating so much buzz in the hockey world is it both helps young players gain mentorship and retired pros find new meaning in life after they have left the game. And it doesn’t hurt that the startup team includes a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame – former New York Islanders great Bryan Trottier.
“It does help the former players get back on track after their playing days are through,” said Founder Steve Wicklum in an interview in the Waterloo Accelerator Centre, which iSports has called home since September. “And for the [young] players, it’s about the drive and persistence to get you to the next level and giving you the mentorship you need to get there.”
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The product is an app that connects coaches (many of them veterans of the NHL) with minor hockey players, mainly seven to 15 year olds. The site now lists about 50 coaches, about half of whom have been trained on using the app.
When a young player comes to the site, he or she can search through the list of coaches. Once the player finds a suitable coach, they can begin meeting through video linkups right on the site. They can discuss game video together, and go over different drills to improve skills.
The players (or most likely their families) pay for the time with the coach and iSport takes a percentage of the fee. Wicklum said the lessons can be about hockey skills, strategy or even life lessons that can help a young player develop.
Wicklum said there was no “lightbulb moment” that led to the creation of iSports. He spent 25 years playing hockey, including stints at the University of Buffalo State and stints in the Southern Professional Hockey League. And he wanted to find a tech-product that would help to improve the game.
As he and some partners were developing the platform, they met Trottier through a mutual friend, and he began to work with them. That led to a partnership with the NHL Alumni Association, which sees iSports as a great tool to help former players work with the next generation of hockey players. One of the association’s priorities is helping professional players adjust to life after the game, and iSports is a key tool in doing so.
Wicklum is now more interested in paid users than funding, and his goal in 2016 to have 1,000 coaches on the site and that they be interacting with several thousand users. The primary market is still hockey, but he looks forward to a day when the product can expand to other sports.
“The vision is to master hockey and to have a great model so we can replicate it with other sports,” he said.