skip navigation

HockeyFinder.com: An Adult Hockey Game-Changer

11/17/2014, 9:00am MST
By Q-and-A with HockeyFinder.com Founder Don Giroux

Like it or not, sometimes we have to relocate. Whether it’s for a job, family or just a change of scenery, moving and uprooting is a part of life.

For Don Giroux, that moment came in 2007. He left Canada and moved to slightly warmer pastures in Minnesota. Once the boxes were unpacked and life was starting to settle, Giroux wanted to bring back some familiarity.

“I wanted to join an adult hockey league,” he said, “but not really knowing anybody (in Minnesota), it was a bit more difficult to find one.”

That’s when Giroux created the brainchild, HockeyFinder.com. Collaborating with his business partner, Derrick Dyka, the two created a website to manage their own completely unique adult hockey league.

USA Hockey sat down with Giroux to discuss the business’s development, expansion, and hopefully, bright future for all involved.

USA Hockey: So how did HockeyFinder.com begin?

Don Giroux: Derrick and I had started playing pickup games together, renting out ice at Parade Ice Arena (in Minneapolis). We had about a dozen guys who would show up every Friday night for 3-on-3. Soon that list of players grew to 100 guys and we were playing three nights a week, collecting money at the door. Eventually it got to be too much to manage so we started our website, originally called PickupHockeyFinder.com, before turning it into HockeyFinder.com.

USA Hockey: When did you recognize that this could be turned into a one-of-a-kind adult league?

Don Giroux: It was around 2010 after a couple adult beverages. I had a friend back in Canada who played for a league with his company that had all of the employees, friends and families sign up as individuals. They’d create random teams and the next year they’d sign up again and you’d be on a different team than you were the previous year. It made for a fun, social league and you got to know everybody. We decided to use that format to start our own league.

USA Hockey: What other features set you a part from other adult leagues available?

Don Giroux: The mixing of teams definitely draws a lot of attraction. There are a lot of individuals looking to get into hockey with no team and we help accommodate that. In part that makes our social aspect unique because it’s almost more like a network now. We’ve seen people do business together after meeting each other in the parking lot after a game. It’s not uncommon to see 50 or so guys out there after a game together, not just one team here or there.

We also make sure the schedules are all consistent. Our division plays the same night each week at roughly the same time and at the same arena. For adults, it’s nice to have that consistency, and to know that the schedules are set and you have your set hockey nights. We offer four different seasons for players to play. We have winter, which runs from January to March, spring (April through June), summer (July through September) and fall (October through December). Each season is transferable to a different location if needed.

USA Hockey: So these leagues aren’t specific to just Minnesota?

Don Giroux: Not at all. We have the majority of our locations in Minnesota, from the Twin Cities up to Duluth and St. Cloud, but we are actually starting a league in Madison, Wis., too. We are also open to expanding to new areas.

USA Hockey: How does someone start a new location?

Don Giroux: We have people reach out to us wanting to start a league in their area. They usually volunteer because they already have a foothold in the adult hockey there or run pickup hockey currently. To get it going, those volunteers will have to get four teams along with captains for each team to run it. Then, by word of mouth, it spreads.

USA Hockey: And we hear you guys have figured out a way to almost guarantee a referee at each late-night game, too …

Don Giroux: It’s a concept we developed within our hockey community. If any of our players get their referee certificate through USA Hockey, we will cover the cost of getting that once they’ve done X-amount of games in our league. So, for us, it provides more referees to our games who understand our culture, and then it gets people making a couple of extra dollars and they can afford to play more hockey. It’s worked out really well.

USA Hockey: Why was getting USA Hockey involved important?

Don Giroux: It’s the national governing body of hockey in the United States. Running this business, we wanted to make sure we were covered ourselves, and that our players were covered. Those were big things. But on an even larger scale, our goals are similar to USA Hockey. We feel we can bring a unique (adult hockey) format to different parts of the country. Honestly, we feel that, as we get more adults involved, we can help grow the youth programs as well. 

Adult Hockey News

Popular Articles & Features

The American Truth About Labatt Blue

02/04/2014, 8:00am MST
By USAH

Pond Hockey Championship Celebrates 10th Anniversary

01/21/2015, 9:00am MST
By USA Hockey

Skates are sharpened, Eagle River is Waiting

Former CEO Steps Out of Comfort Zone and Onto the Ice

09/23/2016, 10:30am MDT
By Elizabeth Boger

Tag(s): Home  News