Hockey Hardware scoring big with fans

People who know Billy Morrison know that he dreams big. They also know that the former Niagara-on-the-Lake resident currently working in Ottawa, where he lives with his wife Katherine, puts in the work needed to realize his dreams and follow his passions. 

So it’s no surprise to those people that the 32-year-old was busy Monday evening at Ludology Board Game Cafe in St. Catharines showing off Hockey Hardware, his new strategy game, to friends, supporters and acquaintances, and promoting his Kickstarter campaign to fund its production. 

Hockey Hardware is the result of an idea that came to Morrison five years ago. 

“I love fantasy hockey,” Morrison tells The Local. “One night I started thinking, why isn’t there a game that brings people together in the real world based on hockey. I grabbed a pen and paper and started putting some ideas together. I ended up not sleeping that night because the ideas were just flowing.”

The lifelong hockey fan and former NOTL Wolves player knew he wanted Hockey Hardware to be based on up to four players of the game accumulating statistics to earn different trophies, or hardware. The player with the most trophies at the end of the game wins and “takes home” the Champion’s Cup. 

The astute son of Bill and Karin Morrison dubbed his business Face-Off Games and started searching “Hockey Hardware” on the internet. Seeing that no one was using that name, he locked up the URL in both .com and .ca iterations. 

Then came the nuts and bolts. What form would the game take?

“It started out as a card game only,” Morrison says. “But one day, early on, I played with a friend and he suggested that I think about adding dice. That’s how we got to where we are today.”

He settled on seven dice, two of which are eight-sided and five of which are custom-designed six-sided dice. For cards he landed on a total of 108: 66 Game cards, 30 Adversity cards, and 12 Trophy cards. He designed a stat sheet for players to tally their statistics, and tokens to signify player position, forward line or defensive pairing number, and division. 

The former student council president at Niagara District Secondary School who fought hard to try to keep the school from closing then set about researching how to get 20 prototypes made. He was adamant that he wanted the game to be produced in Canada. 

After extensive research, including contacting others in the game design business, he ended up having  to source the dice overseas. But all other components come from a company based just outside of Montreal. 

Morrison, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Governance, Criminal Justice and Public Policy from the University of Guelph and a masters in Political Management from Carleton University, priced out how much it would cost to get the games made and shipped. 

He added to that figure the portion that Kickstarter would take for the use of their platform as well as the cost of a few add-on prizes for high-level supporters, and determined $125,000 was the right goal for the crowdfunding campaign. 

The campaign began on January 8 and closes Sunday, February 18. Morrison has taken a three-week leave of absence from his role as Niagara Falls MP Tony Baldinelli’s legislative assistant to concentrate on promoting the Kickstarter page. 

“It is an ambitious goal,” Morrison says, “so I want to focus on ensuring we have a great campaign with a lot of events along the way to keep the interest going, to build momentum to push to that $125,000. We want to get as many people as possible to discover it so that they can support it through our Kickstarter campaign or share the word about it to their family and friends.”

Last week he made a trip to Guelph to take in the annual Frosty Mug game between the Gryphons and Lakehead. While in Guelph he held a Hockey Hardware event at The Roundtable Board Game Cafe in that city. 

About 40 people packed into Ludology this past Monday and were duly impressed with the game.

“They were really excited to see the game,” he enthuses. “They had a lot of fun playing it, and we saw some people who weren’t so familiar with hockey winning their games. There was a lot of enthusiasm, and it resulted in our second biggest day on the Kickstarter campaign since the launch.”

The game is indeed easy to play. Morrison met this reporter Saturday at the NOTL Community Centre, where, over coffees from Sweets and Swirls, he laid out the parts and explained the objectives and how a typical game flows.. 

It didn’t take long for this novice to catch on. Usually players participate in 15 total rounds, five per period for three periods, based on a hockey game, of course. Due to time constraints, Saturday’s game only lasted for five quick rounds, and the creator of the game may have been a little embarrassed that he came out on the losing side of the trophy count. 

Besides being easy to learn, it is lots of fun. There is a bit of luck involved, sure, in the draw of the cards and the roll of the dice. But there is more than enough strategy to keep any player interested through all fifteen rounds. And one can see how each game has the potential to be very, very different from the previous one. 

Morrison plans to continue his promotional efforts in Toronto during next week’s NHL All Star festivities. He has partnered with the Carnegie Initiative Summit January 30 and 31, named for Herb Carnegie, known as the best Black hockey player to have never made it to the NHL. 

“It’s to bring people from the hockey world, the corporate world and academics together to grow the game and make it more welcoming and inclusive,” he says. “I really believe that this game can help grow hockey and make it more accessible. Anybody can pick it up and play it.”  

He hopes that it will catch the attention of some of the NHL executives who will be attending. He admits that it would be a huge dream of his to somehow have Hockey Hardware connected with the NHL. 

“It would be a great game for hockey players of any level to play while they’re on the bus to their next game,” Morrison adds. 

And he’ll be at the Sports Card and Collectibles Show at Holiday Inn and Suites in St. Catharines on Sunday, February 4 showing off his prototype. 

“It’s all about the promotion and getting discovered,” an enthusiastic Morrison concludes. “Regardless of how the campaign goes, there will be a track record, and that gives us something to build from and go forward. If we reach our target, then we’ll have what we need to move on and bring this game to life.”

Those who know Billy Morrison surely wouldn’t doubt him. 

To learn more, visit his website at hockeyhardware.com or search for Hockey Hardware at Kickstarter.com.