Last week, blogger Elise Butler of 18,568 Reasons Why interviewed Mark Hughes, the Director of Sports Marketing and Athletes at Easton Hockey, for the series, “Cool Hockey Jobs”. Below is the transcript of the interview:

18,568 Reasons Why: First, could you explain what goes into your job?

Mark Hughes: I have the great fortune of being the Director of Sports Marketing and Athletes for Easton. It’s a job that has many facets to it: I’m also in charge of public relations and the hockey business and I’m directly responsible for managing a group of very hockey savvy service representatives and into the locker rooms and the brand exposure for the company.

18,568RW: How is it to work with these pro athletes all the time, being involved with their production and their equipment, which is obviously a very important part of their game?

MH: I think the interesting part about it is, about there only being 30 National Hockey League teams, there are actually 750 accounts, and every player has certain needs, every player has different usage, every player puts different demands on the system, on the actual products. So it’s actually sort of a bigger job, I think, than most people really can get their arms around. I mean, every single player has a slightly different flex, a slightly different pattern, a slightly different length stick, and our job is to provide them a highly customized product so they can go out and play a sport at the highest level possible. At times it can be daunting, but at the same time it’s mainly rewarding to see a player that you worked very closely with go score a game winning goal in a game that’s extremely important.

18,568RW: A lot of people say that hockey players are the best pro athletes to work with, are super down to Earth. How has your experience been working with them? Any divas?

MH: Well I would say, in my history at Easton I’ve had the opportunity to work with National Football League players, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Major League Baseball players, certainly I’ve had the opportunity to work with National Hockey League players, and I would rank National Hockey League players as the highest on that list of just easy to work with. They’re just very down to Earth. I think the basis of that is that many of them come from very small town environments where there’s a strict set of community culture and as a result they’re extremely humble and I think the essence is they’re generally appreciative for the efforts that others make on their behalf.

18,568RW: Easton has a very elite group of players – [Dany] Heatley, [Ryan] Getzlaf, [Joe] Sakic, [Henrik] Zetterberg, [Jonathan] Toews – what’s the process of signing these athletes to work with Easton?

MH: I certainly wouldn’t leave Marian Gaborik off that list. He’s certainly one of our top endorsed athletes as well. There are 371 players that use an Easton stick; there are over 200 players that use Easton gloves; well over 200 players that wear Easton pants; almost 100 players that use Easton skates. So there’s no shortage of players, and no shortage of high caliber players, that use Easton products in the National Hockey League. We’re drawn toward not only a high level of play but also a very high moral and character. We really feel like we’re a very wholesome brand. Up until very recently we were a family-owned brand so we though it was important to protect that very wholesome, family-oriented aspect in our endorsed athletes. The names that you’ve mentioned all do a fabulous job at embodying those standards.

18,568RW: I receive stats from Easton in my email, and I know other media and other bloggers do too. What do you guys use those stats for other than media?

MH: I guess I should ask specifically what stats you’re referring to?

18,568RW: Like, this percentage of players use Easton sticks and this percentage of points are from Easton sticks…those kind of stats…

MH: I think with any business you’re looking for feedback. I think you always want to gauge where you’re at and where you’re at as a business and how impactful or how relevant you’re being. And I think perception is a qualitative measuring stick. Statistics tend to be a very quantitative measuring stick. And when you want to be in the marketing place and you want to be advertising to a consumer base, and you want to say “we’re the best”, we always feel it’s a more credible message if you have facts to back that up. And one thing the NHL stats provide us is a very factual basis for those types of product assertions. And that’s why we do it. We do it for internal feedback and we do it so that we’re not one of the many companies that throw around words that they grab out of a dictionary to label their products or their brand with. We tend to feel better, more credible, if we’re doing it based upon statistics that are available.

18,568RW: You guys are tweaking and adjusting equipment all the time, releasing new equipment; how often do the pros switch up what they’re using?

MH: It depends upon the player, it depends upon what type of product you’re talking about. One of the things that I think makes Easton a very special company is the people that work here and the company culture that is extremely dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art. We probably invest at least as much, if not twice as much, in our R&D [Research and Development] efforts as many of our competitors probably do in their marketing efforts. You can create market share by having the best product or you can have market share by purchasing market share and you can create market share by creating a marketing machine that makes your product more desirable to the consumer. Our business model is very much predicated on investing in R&D and creating the best product. And we’ll have products that will hit the ice of the National Hockey League come training camp that, even though our numbers are reading 371, almost 52% of the league, we are absolutely convinced, and this has been validated by current NHL players, that the new stick that we introduced is better than the stick that we had now. So we’re encouraged by those results.

18,568RW: I know you guys just released a couple sticks, just re-launched the website; is there any other big Easton news coming up or new releases coming up soon?

MH: One of the things that we’ve been known for as of late is continually introducing innovative and new products to the market place. So we’ll have new products that will be on the ice at training camp for the National Hockey League and hence be available in the retail channel in the late September, October time frame. We have new stick product, we have new skate product, we have some new glove product that we’ll make available at that time.

18,568RW: Complete this sentence: The best part about working for Easton is…

MH: The people. Easton is a company that prides itself on a team environment, it prides itself on hiring great people, and allowing great people to do great things.