We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jon-Paul Ferrari a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jon-Paul, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?
Being in business now for over 12 years, there have been countless stories that we could tell. In my eyes as long as the good stories outweigh the bad…. Puckmasters will be in good shape.
One of most exhilarating things that I can share is a story that I tell many of the students that come into our training center.
Puckmasters is a hockey training center in Wixom, Michigan and we focus on small group training for all ages and skill levels. This story goes way back to 2010, when we had been in business for just over a year. A young man walked into the facility and asked if we were hiring. At the time, our instructors had to have college or professional experience in order to be an instructor.
I looked up from the desk and saw that baby faced “kid” and thought to myself, he could not be more than 16 years old. He stated that he was 18 and just finished high school and was looking for work preferably in the hockey field as he did not want his hockey “career” to be finished. I noticed he was a goaltender for a local high school, and I took his resume and informed him of our hiring requirements and that if anything changes in his future to be sure to stop in.
Fast forward 3 months and I was in a tough spot as I had multiple young goalies that wanted to skate with us, and I did not have enough instructors to meet the demand. I hesitantly reached into the resume folder and called this young man and asked if he was still interested in helping out to make some extra money. No more than 48 hours later, I hired Connor Hellebuyck as our newest goaltending coach.
Now, the name Connor Hellebuyck may not be a household name to anyone outside of the hockey world and at the time he wasn’t a name anyone IN the hockey world would know.
After working with kids from all ages, I had parents asking me to please schedule their goalies specifically with Connor as he was absolutely amazing to watch work with them. His attention to detail and ability to connect with each student was something that takes most veteran coach’s years to learn. He quickly became a huge asset to my team at Puckmasters. He would stay late after his shifts and ask if he could stay on the ice and put himself through workouts to get stronger. He wanted to come in early if we had open ice and offered to pay to use the open ice to work on his mechanics and skating. He would dedicate hours a day to training on top of him working with his young goalie students.
Here is where the story gets wild….
After getting to know Connor, I learned that Connor had a tryout in the NAHL (North American Hockey League). The NAHL is a high-end junior hockey league and has teams across the U.S. He was driving down to Odessa, Texas to tryout and had no plans after that. If he did not make the cut, he was out and at ground zero. After returning home he stated that he made the team. He was going to be the team’s 3rd string goalie and did not plan on getting much playing time. After the starting goalie went down with an injury and the backup goalie didn’t perform well, Mr. Connor Hellebuyck was now the starting goalie for the Odessa Jackalopes.
He went from an undrafted goaltender to starting goaltender to having a full ride scholarship to Umass Lowell by Christmas all in the span of 5 months.
Connor Hellebuyck spent two years at Umass Lowell becoming the school shutout leader with 12 shutouts in 54 games. It was on a hot day in June 2012 while working at Puckmasters, Connor asked if he could take a phone call in my office…. He came out 10 minutes later and said that he was going to be drafted by the Winnepeg Jets of the National Hockey League a dream he told me he was going to make happen two years earlier when he came in asking for part time work. Connor was selected in the 5th round 130th overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. In September of 2020, Connor won the Vezina trophy as the best goaltender in the NHL. Let me repeat that…. He was awarded the Vezina, for the league’s top goaltender, in the world’s most prestigious league!
I tell this story because it’s what every coach in any sport tells their players. If you want it bad enough and you put in the work to get it done, it CAN be done. He sat in my office and said, I do not want to be done playing hockey and I will do whatever it takes to get it done and it’s something I will remember for the rest of my life.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Puckmasters was founded in early 2009 and from the time we opened our doors to today, we pride ourselves on delivering top end hockey training regardless of age or skill level. We are a 1 stop shop for everyone that wants to either get involved with hockey or want to take their game to the next level. Puckmasters is unique in the sense that we are one of only a handful of facilities that offer small games training on our ice rinks. We have small ice sheets that allows our coaches to focus on individual skill-based drills.
One of the things I am most proud of is when our customers say they love the culture that we have at Puckmasters. The families that come and work out with us spend a lot of time and money outside of training. All parents with children in youth sports spend a majority of their free time getting their athletes to and from practices and games and for these families to make the time and to trust us as a staff to make their children better is extremally rewarding.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We love hearing from current and past students through social media! Our Instagram (PuckmastersDetroit) is a great way for families and students to send video clips of their hard work paying off in games and practices. Big shout out to Mike Baker who is in charge of our social media as he does a great job in making sure these students get the props they deserve.
One thing that we are starting this month is an online store that will sell Puckmasters apparel. It has been difficult for us to keep Puckmasters “swag” stocked in our facility. We are always looking for ways to offer more to our customers that will help stay top of mind with our current and former skaters.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Easy Answer….Word of Mouth!
When we opened, we had a $50k advertising budget that we did not get the chance to use because of how quickly our services spread through word of mouth! We still have families and parents stop into our facility to just say hello. We are talking about 12 years later….and we still have friends and former clients that push our business and our services. I cannot say enough about the people and friends we have made!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.puckmasters.com/detroit
- Instagram:@puckmastersdetroit
- Facebook: Puckmasters Detroit
Image Credits
Received permission to use students’ photos – Jp Ferrari Puckmasters Students- Annabelle Carrier Jake Daiek Dominic Ferrari