Canada's last hockey stick factory survives in face of tariff threats and globalization

BRANTFORD, Ontario (AP) — Wearing protective gloves and earplugs, a worker feeds lengths of wood into a machine that makes an earsplitting whine as it automatically cuts a groove into the end of each piece.

Nearby, stacks of wooden wedges wait to be slotted into those grooves to form the beginnings of a hockey stick. Further down the Roustan Hockey production line, other workers are busy shaping, trimming, sanding, painting and screen printing as they turn lumber into a Canadian national symbol.