I’m a tennis plyer and skier, but as a Swede, of course I grew up playing “pond hockey”. In Sweden, you don’t play pond hockey on a frozen pond, you play it on the school soccer field that the city flushed with water and let it freeze over. My “pond” was exactly two minutes from my house. I know that because I could run from my house to my classroom when the second bell for school to start rang.

We never thought much about protecting our teeth back then, not even our skulls. I remember first time my mom got me a helmet. I felt dorky, but the CCM logo was cool and made me feel like one of the big international stars, like Gretzky. 

And now, decades later, as an inventor and founder of a company that cares deeply about safety, these memories keep coming back to me. We had so much fun on the “pond”, but we didn’t think too much about why mouthguards are important or what long-term consequences hits to the head or teeth could bring. 

After moving our family to Michigan, I immediately got season tickets to see the Red Wings. I love professional sports; the dedication, the skills, the intensity.  At that time, the Red Wings had a bunch of Swedes on the team.  This excited me a bit extra. Watching Lidstrom flow over the ice, diverting any attempt from a player to score with such ease was amazing.  Then there was the FIN Filppula, I loved his speed and skills.  I was disappointed when he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightening. he now plays for the New York Islanders who are powering through the first round of playoffs! 

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be glued to the TV for the next month during play-offs.

Professionally speaking, I have to say that it concerns me that so many players still haven’t stopped using inferior hockey mouthguards. Conventional mouthguards are uncomfortable.   We can see the way the players chew on them and have them sticking out through their clenching teeth. At SISU, we have built our products on two basic principles; a mouth guard must have a custom comfortable fit and it has to offer superior protection. Our unique proprietary design and material has only 1 dental injury per 25,000 mouthguards. A standard bulky guard has shown to yield 1 injury in 3 guards. If you can’t keep your hockey mouthguard in for hours without getting bothered, you need to choose a new mouthguard… one that you can talk, breathe and drink with. Guess which one I have in mind?

Let me know what you think.