Blog

Fifteen years in, the best part of this hockey brand is still the people. Sunday night at Honda Center was proof.

Every morning starts with the same black mug stamped with four words: Check On Your Teammates. Right next to the pot sits a simple digital frame cycling through old skates, road trips, and road-worn memories. The rule is dead simple: one cup, one check-in. Before opening an inbox or taking a single sip, let an existing daily habit carry the prompt to reach out to the people who matter most.

Nobody's life depends on a hoodie. We're making clothes. But this is why projects like this matter to us. Hockey doesn't just live under NHL arena lights. It's forged in cold high school rinks, early morning skates, and the communities built around the game. When a bookstore manager 3,000 miles away reached out, we didn't slap a logo on a blank tee and call it a day. We drew their pelican from scratch, built five custom pieces, and answered the call. Because small and real will always beat big and generic.

On World Mental Health Day, Violent Gentlemen and Check On Your Teammates® partnered with the Anaheim Ducks to launch a season-long effort supporting youth mental health through Rady Children’s Health’s WellSpaces program.

You need people better than you to challenge you. You need people at your level to push you. And you need people just starting out to remind you how far you’ve come.

One coach. One story. A whole team wearing the reminder every day. How Bentley Hockey is checking on their teammates.  

Some fights choose you. The Gloves Off Women’s Tee was designed for everyone fighting, everyone standing in their corner, and everyone we’ve lost along the way.

The friend who's always laughing. The teammate who seems fine. The dad at the rink. Keep checking in, today and all year long.

We sent a crew to the Fairmont Ice Hockey Golf Tournament for the second year. The scorecards were bad. The cause was good. Here's why we keep showing up. 

Talking about suicide isn't harmful. Silence is. Asking someone directly doesn't plant the idea, it tells them you can handle hearing it and they don't have to carry it alone. Prevention isn't a clinical skill. It's a text, a little more grace, the courage to ask twice and stay. Here's how to show up for your people this month and every month.

There are moments in life when you don’t need something to fix you or make the pain go away. Sometimes you just need a place where the volume gets turned down for a little while. For me, since I’ve been doing this, that place has been the mats.

All five August Sunday Services in one place. What golf teaches you between shots when you slow down enough to notice.

Suicide prevention isn’t something we should only talk about during September. This month gives us an opportunity to bring more attention to it, but our responsibility to each other continues long after September ends.

Our biggest reason for these warehouse sales has nothing to do with sales. We do them for the same reason a lot of people play adult league hockey. It’s an excuse to get the gang together, check in on one another, and slow our lives down for a minute. 

For more than ten years, Pat had been inviting us fishing. Every year, work or family or life got in the way. This year, Pat wasn't taking no for an answer, and a 5 a.m. boat call turned into a full day chasing Dorado off Catalina, a few close calls with marlin, and one last cast on the way home that finally landed me my first big saltwater fish.

BJJ is known as a ground-fighting system, but every match begins on the feet. There are two ways down: pull guard or execute a takedown. I have always preferred the takedown. There is something satisfying about earning the top position from the feet. But a clean takedown is rarely the result of strength alone. Like the rest of jiu-jitsu, it depends on sensitivity, balance, timing, and the ability to recognize the right moment.

Sometimes the best therapy in the world isn't a couch or a prescription. Sometimes it's a clean gi, a room full of teammates, and an hour where the only thing that matters is the next move.

Every year the AHL throws a business development trade show bringing together all the teams and their partners. This year it landed in Grand Rapids. Most of these clubs are old friends at this point, so the show felt more like a reunion. Four hours catching up on house projects, kids, and plans for the season ahead. If you're a fan of one of our AHL clubs, get ready for a great season of merch.

This month the lessons weren't really about golf.

Father's Day had us thinking about what we hope to pass down. Not scorecards or perfect swings. Showing up. Being present. Handling the good and the bad without getting too high or too low. Then came the early mornings, the alarm that never feels worth it until you're standing on the first tee with dew still on the grass. Kids reminding us the game doesn't have to be serious. And the reminder that the longest conversation of the round is the one you have with yourself. Four Sundays. One takeaway. The score fades. The people and the moments stick around.