Made-in-Windsor Hockey Bag ‘Changed My Life’
That awful hockey stench, seeping through the house from sweat-soaked gear hung up in the basement, inspired an invented-in-Windsor hockey bag that at least one hockey mom says has “changed my life.”
Called the Drylocker, it works sort of like those inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments. Its plug-in electric fan puffs up the bag, circulating room temperature air in and around the sopping equipment, exhausting the air through vents with charcoal carbon filters that capture the stink. Unplug the fan two hours later and the gear is dry and ready for the next game, without ever having to remove it from the bag.
“Six years we’ve been working on it,” said inventor Murray Chappell, a former Chrysler worker who used to have a sideline business making boat tops. “It doesn’t look like much when you see it. You think a guy just put a fan and a filter in it.”
But it’s been through many refinements. They built prototypes made of clear plastic with streamers inside so they could watch the airflow and change the fan and adjust the bag’s dimensions. They tried different kinds of filters.
They increased the size by 25 per cent to provide more air space, and inverted the skate pockets so the air runs from the bottom and travels up through the upside-down skates before venting out the top.
“Now, we’ve got it down to where it’s really good,” said Chappell, 55, a Woodslee resident whose partners are longtime friends and hockey parents Marie Costello and Roger Robinet, both from Windsor.
Their idea was born from the terrible stench of their kids’ drying gear. If you were out of town in a motel room and needed to air out the equipment between games, you cleared out of that room right away.
At the time, Robinet had separated from his wife and was living in a one-bedroom apartment. When his sons aired out their equipment, he recalled, “it was awful.”
The Star brought a Drylocker bag to Thursday’s game between Massey and St. Joseph high schools, where players thought it was a “pretty “cool” idea.
“My gear’s pretty smelly,” admitted St. Joseph’s Chris Brookbanks, 16, who uses a rack in the basement to dry his gear. “This takes most of the work out of airing out your equipment.”
Teammate Ryan Nicodemo, 17, also figured using the bag would prevent leaving some vital piece of equipment — an elbow pad or glove — at home. All the gear from him and his brother basically takes up an entire room in the basement, he said. “The smell is the worst part,” said Nicodemo. “This thing gets around that.”
St. Joseph coach Rick Frias said it’s ironic the bag was introduced Thursday to the team. Very recently, he started his first speech of the season by saying: “Isn’t it great to be reintroduced to that familiar dressing room odour of rotting gloves and stinky gear?” He’d be glad to have to revise his speech for next season. “I tell you, this is like the ultimate solution,” he said.
Theresa Dostaler, who runs the hockeymomincanada.net website, received a free bag to try with her youngest son Kellen and is now a believer. “It does allow you to dry the equipment right in the bag, without the stink,” said Dostaler.
“It’s kind of cool. My son is six and it’s kind of a discussion piece — you’ve got a fan in your bag.”
She believes it might catch on with people who live in small homes and parents who are new to hockey. “Some parents think the stench is just part of hockey, but for those who don’t like it,” this is an answer, she said.
Another hockey mom, Taylor Tait in Canaan, Conn., ordered three bags for her sons — all goalies. She posted a YouTube video of herself raving about the Drylocker.
“They really changed my life,” she said of the bags. “No more hockey smell! How would you like that?”
The bags, available on the company’s website drylockerhockey.com, come with different features and sizes. A wheeled version sells on Costco.ca for $99. The filters last the season before they need to be replaced.
Unfortunately, the partners said, the bag’s made in China because they couldn’t find a Canadian firm that could come close to competing on cost.
“That is a great idea,” said hockey dad Mark Desjardins, when he was shown the bag in action Thursday at Forest Glade Arena, where his son Michael was playing for Massey. “One of the biggest problems (in hockey) is the equipment drying out in the basement. The smell is horrible, it wrecks your basement.”
The partners ordered a first run of 500 a few months ago, and have been encouraged by the response. Many have gone to Costco and a Toronto-based firm that cleans hockey gear, promoting the bags as a great way to keep gear in good shape between cleanings. A few sports stores in Alberta and B.C. are also selling them.
“We’re just starting to get them out,” said Robinet.
All the money made from the first bags will go back for the next order.
“Hopefully, we’ve got a winner on our hands,” said Robinet, “because it’s been a lot of money and a lot of work.”
