Players across Europe who’ve suited up over the past 19 years have probably worn equipment that passed through Hockey Horizon at some point. The Latvia-based company has been one of the continent’s biggest wholesalers since 2006, supplying retailers and teams with gear from Bauer, CCM, Warrior, True, and Vaughn. Now they’re cutting out the middleman.
The new hockey store at hockeyhorizon.com puts their full catalog in front of individual players for the first time. And frankly, it’s about time someone built a proper European alternative to the big North American retailers.
Here’s the reality of buying hockey gear in Europe: it’s often a headache. Local shops carry limited stock. Ordering from overseas means waiting forever and paying through the nose for shipping. Players in smaller markets — Portugal, Spain, parts of Eastern Europe—have it even worse. Hockey Horizon saw that gap and decided to fill it.
The inventory covers what players would expect. Hockey skates from entry-level to elite. Hockey sticks in every flex and curve pattern available. Hockey helmets that meet actual safety standards, not the knockoff stuff that sometimes floats around. Hockey gloves, hockey bags, hockey pucks — basically everything a player needs except the ice itself.
The brand lineup stands out from typical retail offerings. These are the same manufacturers supplying NHL teams and top European leagues. That’s not marketing fluff; Hockey Horizon has been moving this stuff at wholesale volumes for almost two decades. The company knows which products hold up and which ones fall apart after a single season of hard use.
Pricing should raise some eyebrows. Wholesalers operate on thinner margins than retail, and Hockey Horizon claims they’re passing those savings along to customers. Whether that actually translates to meaningful discounts remains to be seen, but the wholesale relationships are real. That part checks out.
Shipping is the other major selling point. Everything goes out from Latvia with fast delivery across the EU. For a player in Germany or France, that beats waiting two weeks for a package from Michigan. For someone in Lithuania or Croatia, it might be the difference between getting gear at all versus making do with whatever’s available locally.
The site also handles team orders, including sublimated jerseys for a beer league squad and custom gear for a youth program. Most online hockey stores treat team sales as an afterthought. Hockey Horizon built its whole business on it.
The hockey equipment market isn’t exactly starving for options. Pure Hockey, Ice Warehouse, Hockey Monkey — there’s no shortage of places to buy a stick. But those operations were built around North American players. European customers end up as an afterthought, and it shows in the shipping costs and delivery times.
Hockey Horizon is making a different bet: that there’s enough genuine demand in Europe to support a dedicated regional player. Given how much the sport has grown on this side of the Atlantic — youth programs popping up in countries that didn’t have rinks ten years ago — they might be onto something.
More information is available on the official website.