Some of Canada’s best known sports equipment brands are set to disappear next year and the year after that as Canstar Sports seeks to build a Bauer ‘superbrand’ that echoes the strategy of parent Nike.

John Collins, Canstar’s vice-president of sales and marketing, says the company wants Bauer to become the dominant brand in hockey and every effort will be made to make it so domestically and internationally in this era of global marketing.

In January, Canstar’s skate brands Lange, Daoust, Micron and Mega will be reflagged as Bauer products.

Skates – ice and inline – already sold under the Bauer name will continue to be marketed that way.

By January 1997, Canstar will consolidate its two brands of protective equipment, the venerable Cooper and the much more modern Flak, under the Bauer label.

Sticks will also become Bauer products if they are not sold as that brand already.

The tag for the consolidated lineup is ‘Bauer’s the name of the game,’ says Rob Morash, advertising and promotions manager at Canstar’s marketing and sales offices in Mississauga, Ont.

Canstar’s head office is in Montreal.

Morash dismisses the idea that eventually even the Bauer brand could be jettisoned, to be replaced by the Nike name.

He says Nike, based in Beaverton, Ore., has already said it intends to go with a dual brand strategy.

Pierre Boivin, president and chief executive officer of Canstar, says at one point everything was up in the air about branding, including marketing everything under the Nike name.

However, Boivin says, it made more sense to keep the Bauer name as it has more than 50% of the Canadian market.

As for a consumer backlash, particularly when the Cooper name – a genuine piece of sporting Canadiana – disappears, Morash does not anticipate one, noting the brand’s disappearance will be gradual.

Bauer, Collins says, enjoys far greater brand loyalty than Cooper, despite the latter’s 60-odd years in Canada.

He says research showed Cooper equipment was seen to do the job it was meant for, but its image was too conservative.

He says Bauer’s new positioning places it as a superbrand of leading edge products.

In Canada, Canstar’s skate sales are worth about $100 million retail, and sales of its other hockey equipment is worth as much again.

Morash says once the company’s brands are consolidated there will be a ‘couple of families’ under the Bauer name.

He says one will be traditional and the other state-of-the-art.

Bruce Newton, Toronto-based director of marketing for Karhu Canada, maker of the Koho, Jofa, Canadien, Titan and Heaton brands of sticks and hockey equipment, says he had an inkling Canstar was planning some changes when the company did not unveil any new products at its annual sales meeting in Naples, Fla. earlier this month.

Newton says Karhu, largest stick maker in Canada and third in the Canadian hockey equipment market, does not have any specific plans to counter Canstar’s superbrand.

He says the company has always relied on its ‘grassroots marketing,’ and will continue to develop its relationships with National Hockey League players.

He says the brands nhl professionals wear carry a lot of weight with consumers.

Newton says he does not welcome an arms-length Nike presence in the hockey equipment market, but he admits the company’s association with Canstar will enhance the game’s image and expand the market.

He says the task for Karhu Canada is to take a slice of that larger market.

As for advertising for the Bauer superbrand, Morash says it will be featured at the World Junior championships in Boston in December and in a ‘big way’ during the 1996-97 nhl season.

Also, he says, although Canstar will ‘sustain a certain amount of noise’ throughout the season on tsn, the company has also switched its advertising from hockey programs, such as Molson’s Hockey Night in Canada, to MuchMusic, the youth-oriented cable specialty service.

Canstar’s ad agency in Canada is Vickers & Benson Advertising in Toronto.

Bob Colburn, vice-president of sales and marketing for Canstar in Swanton, Vt., says Bauer and Cooper have strong brand recognition in the u.s., but the other skate brands and Flak protective equipment have next to none.

In 1994, Canstar hockey sales in the u.s. exceeded those in Canada for the first time.

Colburn says Canstar’s American retail skate sales are worth about US$100 million. Sales of all hockey related gear runs to about US$225 million.

The growth in the American hockey market is reflected in Canstar’s planned move next spring.

Colburn says Canstar in the u.s. has outgrown its space in Vermont and is relocating to larger premises, a former Nike warehouse complex, in Greenland, n.h., a town about 50 miles north of Boston and close to the heart of hockey in the American Northeast.

Charles Alexander, director of marketing for ITECH Sport Products in Montreal, says he is surprised Canstar is giving up the Cooper name, and called the development of a Bauer superbrand ‘a very significant strategic move.’

As for the skate market, Alexander says it is his guess Nike, which is launching its own complete hockey lineup, at the nhl all-star game in Boston in February, will use Daoust, say, or Mega, as the foundation for its own skate since there are lasts and manufacturing facilities already in place and not nearly enough time available to build a skate from scratch.

No one at Sport Maska in Montreal, widely known for its ccm brand, could be reached for comment.