Shooting the lights out (behind the scenes at a Warrior Hockey photoshoot)

 

(From August 2011)

By Michael Caples –

On Aug. 11, I was invited to get out of bed early for a behind-the-scenes tour of a video shoot conducted by Warrior, as they prepared for the debut of their new stick, the Dynasty.

Little did I know that a shirt and tie would be the wrong choice of attire for the event; I would have been far better off with a warm-up suit and skates.

The video shoot took place on one of the sheets of ice at the Troy Sports Center, which meant that it would be cold, and, well, icy. When I walked into the prep room (also known as locker room No. 7) Warrior brand manager Christine Knight and senior product manager Keith Perera were lacing up their skates as if they were getting ready for a lengthy session of pond hockey.

You might think that the day was full of firing pucks around (partially true, and yes, I rushed back to the office for my skates). But it was also a hard day of work for Warrior, Team Detroit (their marketing agency), a set of cameramen, and Matt Martin — New York Islanders forward and model for the day. The crew began setting up in the slot at one of end of the rink around 7 a.m.; Warrior closed up shop at 5 p.m. For the majority of those 10 hours, the cameras were focused on Martin, who did everything from posing with the stick to firing one-timers.

It was just another day at the office for Knight, who has been with Warrior since 2006.

“What we’ve learned as a growing company in this industry is that you really have to explain technology in a way that has our consumer excited to learn more,” Knight said. “So when you see our print ad launch for the Dynasty, what we’re calling the ‘Slingshot’ ad, it’s going to be something that people pay attention to — and hopefully they’ll visit Warrior.com to see the Dynasty video & product in action.”

The technology Warrior will be featuring this fall is called Axy-Sym, which means a different type of shaft construction for their right and left-handed models. The front of the Dynasty’s shaft allows for more stretch, while the back part is more compressed, so the stick flexes and snaps back quicker than other sticks — which makes for a faster shot.

“In the past, sticks were always made the same way all the way around, which doesn’t really make sense when you think about it,” Perera said. “When you use a stick, you only use it one way or the other. So what we’ve done is build the stick proper for left or right-handed players so you can get the maximum flex out of the front side, which is built to stretch more, and get all that tension on the backside, so that when you’re loading that stick up and it flexes, it wants to return back straight.”

The goal of the video shoot — and corresponding advertisements — is to explain the features of the new stick.

“With Axy Sym, it’s really an internal story and not something that’s visible to the naked eye.  Our job is to tell the Dynasty story, in a Warrior way, of how the stick is built, what it makes unique, and why it’s beneficial to a player,” Knight said.

“It makes your shot better and we explain that through a combination of really bringing that technology to life and also introducing on-ice footage that shows it in action.”

For Martin — the star of the show — that meant countless shots on goal, trying to stickhandle right-handed, and having Perera chase him around the ice with a GoPro camera for a different camera angle. Yet the Windsor native had no complaints from the day.

“It’s not really too difficult, except for when they make me go right-handed, that gets a little difficult,” Martin joked. “But for the most part it’s pretty basic — I just try to have fun with it and enjoy it because there’s going to be a day where I won’t get to do these things, and you really have embrace it and enjoy the time you have to do them.”

Perera said that while it’s just one day of work, a photo shoot of this nature sets the groundwork for how well the stick will be received by the target audience. The collected images and video will be assembled into a video about the stick that will be featured in advertisements, displays, and on the Internet — both websites and social media networks.

“It’s a full-day shoot, but you get so much out of it,” Perera said. “Just for creating the buzz, giving education on the product, and also basically helping sell through our dealers, because with the use of QR codes now, we’ll actually take a link to our YouTube or Vimeo page, and that link will be built into a QR code that will sit on a display in a store like Perani’s.”

The new Warrior Dynasty stick will be available October 2011. Visit warrior.com/hockey for more information. To see the Warrior ad, flip back to Page 2.