One day in 2008, after spending too long collecting assorted pucks up off the ice after hockey practice, 12-year-old Christopher Wright asked his father to invent a device to make the task easier. His dad, Bill Wright, went home and came up with a prototype for a puck-lifting and storage device that proved to save time and wear and tear on backs and hands.
That product, tested on the ice at Pickering's Don Beer Arena, has been picked up for distribution by Canadian Tire. After signing a deal to become Canada's official retailer for National Hockey League equipment, the chain is making a significant push into the hockey market this year, and it expects the Wright's
Pucker-Up innovation to be a hot seller, spectators were told at a media event at a Pickering Canadian Tire store on Sept. 10.
"From the mind of a child, to the ingenuity of his father," Mark Guinto of the Pickering mayor's office says by email, "this locally invented and tested product will be on Canadian Tire shelves across the country. And Mr. Wright didn't even have to go on the
Dragon's Den to pitch it."
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Mark Guinto, Public Affairs Coordinator, Office of the Mayor of Pickering