by: Keith Perera - Warrior Hockey Marketing

We all know how freakishly accomplished Erik Karlsson is, and all in a still very young NHL career. But we bet there are some things you don’t know about the Ottawa Senators’ phenom and how he came to Warrior.

HE GAVE WARRIOR A SHOT!

He started his NHL career using Easton and then Bauer, but didn’t feel comfortable with his stick. So one day, Erik mentioned to our pro rep Chris: “Hey maybe you can make me some sticks”.

“We rushed some sticks through and delivered them to him right away”, recounted Chris Paul our service rep for the Ottawa Senators. "We delivered the sticks and I got a call from the equipment manager that he put them into play on the first day, He loved them! - and we’ve had him ever since.“ This was the start of the 2013-14 season.

FROM THERE, EVERYTHING SNOWBALLED

After Erik was using our Covert DT1LT (Karlsson used a true retail construction DT1LT) he started asking about our gloves since one of his teammates was a big fan (Jason Spezza). We made him some Covert gloves and he made some small tweaks and then he was in (Nov 2013). Then we started working on pants and with some more work - got him there too(Feb 2014). All during this process, he was wearing Warrior FOR FREE! He just liked the product.

GOOD STICK PRODUCT IS KEY

If the product is wrong, or not right, he’ll tell you. Erik is very open and let’s us know exactly what he wants - which makes it easier for us to make changes or adjustments. The one thing he was pretty picky about was his graphic - he didn’t like getting out of the Covert look but he really likes this new Dynasty look.



This is the main responsibility of Chris our service rep - keep Erik happy and help guide his requests to our factory. It always helps having a player that is insightful enough to know what they want or need, it’s really working together to get the most out of our product.

At the start of 2014 season, Erik shifted his stick construction to our "F4 Pro” and accordingly we shifted the graphic to match (Dynasty AX1ST). The Dynasty AX mid-kick construction better suited his heavier load shots from the point vs. the T3Pro construction he was using before (Covert) which he liked for quick snap shots or wristers. Now that he’s settled-in to this mid-kick type of construction, it made sense to debut our new Dynasty graphic with him.

DANGER! CURVES AHEAD

He’s only tried to change his curve once. A friend of his, playing in the Swiss league was scoring a bunch of goals and he wanted to try his same curve. We built him some samples and then he went back to his regular curve. He’s pretty stable and knows what he likes.



Chris not only services Erik, but many other pros on the Senators and other NHL teams he services. He’s run into his fair share of players who change curves often (*cough Kovalev, Hossa). But Erik seems to know what he likes and sticks with it. Here’s a little secret, Karlsson uses curve that we offer at retail - W28!!!





But here’s another secret - 2015 will mark the first time Karlsson’s name will appear on a Warrior stick as a retail pattern - W16 KARLSSON





We signed Karlsson to an endorsement deal at the beginning of the 2014-15 season and we hope to continue to work with him on better product and innovations all the way through his career and beyond.

If you don’t already know, Erik also has a pretty solid Tumblr game - sauce him a follow at erikkarlsson65