From a brain injury to a full-time hockey fan apparel business

Sometimes a business starts with a product idea. Lacey Conine’s started with a hockey game.

After 15 years in retail and a long recovery from a traumatic brain injury, Lacey was looking for a way to prove to herself that she could work again. A small clothing idea soon became Double Hockey Stix, a hockey apparel business with a fiercely loyal community behind it.

Along the way, she had to learn a new business model and figure out how to build a brand without relying on traditional advertising. Here’s how Lacey turned an uncertain fresh start into a business she’s proud to run.

From retail to a hockey brand

Lacey Conine spent 15 years in retail, including 10 years in upper management at a Seattle-based skateboard and action sports company. She had also previously owned a business and had some experience creating merchandise.

Everything changed after a traumatic brain injury in 2020 left Lacey bedridden for almost two years. During recovery, a hockey game became an unexpected turning point. Lacey had never been particularly interested in sports, but the game held her attention and introduced her to a community she quickly connected with.

“I thought I could start a little tiny side clothing brand just to show my brain that I can, and I can join the workforce again.”

Lacey then started her own clothing brand based on hockey culture. Her first products were inspired by jokes and inside references shared among hockey fans. But more importantly, the business gave her a way to reconnect with work while building something around a community that had become an important part of her life.

Starting a print-on-demand brand with a recovering brain

Lacey knew Print on Demand existed before she decided to try it. But knowing about something and actually figuring it out are two different things when your brain is still healing.

“I was really intimidated to start using Print on Demand, because it was a system I didn’t understand,” Lacey says. “Somebody who’s not going through a brain injury could probably read the instructions and figure it out. It took me three times as long, and I needed videos and other people to help me.”

Lacey signed up for Printful around February 2023, then spent months getting comfortable with the platform before committing to a real launch.

“I gave myself a time frame and space to play with the technology, and ordered samples right away,” she says. By June, Lacey had decided to build a proper website.

30 sales on day one, and an NHL team comes calling

Lacey launched her hockey lifestyle brand right as the season kicked off. She expected a slow start, but that’s not what happened.

“Day one, I had probably 30 sales,” Lacey says. “It was something I made for my friends, so they were supporting me, but they were telling their other hockey friends about it, and it just blew up.”

The designs were mostly inside jokes from the hockey community. Lacey couldn’t believe people were actually buying them. “I kind of sat back and thought, I have something here, and I need to take this a little bit more seriously,” she says.

“What kind of went from a joke hobby is now my full-time job.”

Then, things escalated fast. Within two months of launching, an NHL team right in her backyard reached out about a partnership. Lacey ended up making merchandise for them across three consecutive seasons.

“It was like do or die,” she says. For someone who’d started the brand as a brain exercise, the pace was both terrifying and validating.

Figuring out the numbers behind the business

Although Lacey knew how to get the products in front of customers, understanding what to charge to make the business work was much harder.

Coming from retail and fashion, Lacey had certain expectations for what she wanted to sell, including using Comfort Colors. But some choices didn’t always make financial sense for a growing business.

The pricing side took her about a year and a half to understand.

“The biggest challenge for me was figuring out the financial part of it. I didn’t understand the different wallets or how margins worked. I had a really hard time figuring out margins, like what can I charge that is beneficial to me?”

Lacey realized her pricing needed to leave her with at least a 50% margin. She’d tried bringing in higher-end products like $100 sweatshirts, but her community wasn’t ready for them – so she stayed in the $50 to $60 range.

“I had to learn to adapt to what my customer wanted, not necessarily where I wanted to elevate the brand. The customer didn’t want to go there, and that’s fine. I’m going to listen to them, and we’re going to move on from that.”

Growing a hockey fan apparel brand without paid ads

Lacey runs her entire business solo. There’s no team, agency, or virtual assistant. She built her Shopify store herself, handles all customer service, and manages every social media account.

And she’s done almost all of it without spending money on traditional advertising.

“I just build my social media platform, and it’s truly word of mouth,” she says. “I’ve tried some Meta ads, but it doesn’t really give me the results I want.”

Her approach goes against most eCommerce advice. She doesn’t follow posting schedules or chase algorithms.

“I’m never going to follow somebody that’s like, post at 9:30 in the morning because that’s when you do the best,” Lacey says. “My life doesn’t work like that, so I’m gonna post when I have the time.”

Her niche is specific enough to sustain itself organically. “My business and what I do within hockey is extremely niche,” she says. “And that’s why it works.”

Lacey puts herself out there as she is, and the people who connect with that come to her. The teams that want to work with her reach out on their own.

Protecting the community with hard boundaries

Lacey’s previous business had a large following, and that experience taught her the importance of boundaries.

She doesn’t encourage arguments or controversy for engagement. Her priority is keeping the space respectful and useful for the people who come to it – women, queer people, people of color, and disabled fans.

Her rules are clear. Nobody can comment on her posts unless they follow her. She doesn’t use engagement bait or rage posts to boost numbers. If someone drops hate language, Lacey removes it immediately, without reacting.

She frames it as much a mental health decision as a business one. “I’m not going to engage with these people,” she says. “They’re not in my space to learn from me or to be an ally. They’re here to troll, and I don’t have time for that.”

When your hockey merchandise becomes a safe space for the community

Hockey arenas can feel unwelcoming for fans who don’t fit the typical demographic. Lacey’s brand has quietly changed that for a lot of people in a way she didn’t anticipate.

“I was on a podcast, and the host told me that when she sees people at hockey arenas wearing my brand, she knows that they’re a safe person,” Lacey says.

It’s happened more than once. Someone even told her online that they made a friend because they were both wearing her brand at an event. Those moments changed how she measures the business’s impact.

“All these people needed a place to experience this, and my brand just helped facilitate that. What more success could I want than that? My community is everything. They’re not customers. We are community members.”

Over $12,000 donated to special causes

Lacey has built giving back into how Double Hockey Stix operates. Last year, she donated over $12,000 to nonprofits, Black hockey leagues, and queer hockey leagues.

The mutual aid section on her website lists the causes she supports, and members of the community often come for recommendations on where to donate.

For Lacey, supporting the hockey community goes beyond selling merch. Giving back has become part of the brand itself, turning it into a platform that supports the same people it was built for.

Why Printful became a key part of Lacey’s business

While getting used to the system took some time, the support Lacey received helped her get comfortable with Print on Demand. She relied heavily on Printful’s YouTube videos when she was starting out and reached out to the company directly when she needed help.

The Printful team’s responsiveness stood out to her while she was still learning how the process worked.

“The YouTube videos were like my manual in the beginning. I also really was on top of emailing Printful for support, and they’re so good at being responsive.”

It gave Lacey more confidence to keep working through the parts she found difficult. She also felt the people supporting her understood she was trying to build a real business, rather than simply answering technical questions.

“They’re so in tune with their clients, and I was like, ‘I love this. I feel like part of the family.’ I feel like they really care about my struggle and my business.”

Lacey also became a Printful affiliate, and she carries that same energy forward. “When I sign people up, I tell them I will hold your hand through this, because I wish I had that,” she says.

Her customers, meanwhile, don’t always realize they’re buying print-on-demand products. “I’ve proven that it’s quality, it’s fast, and you can trust it,” she says.

Why Print on Demand works for neurodivergent entrepreneurs

Lacey has ADHD and autism. She’s open about it, and she thinks more people in the print-on-demand space should be, too.

“It’s kind of cool to get to promote and say, hey, Printful, Print on Demand, these things work with me,” she says. The flexibility is the biggest reason why.

After 15 years of standing on her feet for 10-hour retail shifts, Lacey no longer has to do anything her body can’t handle – Print on Demand doesn’t ask her to. “I can log on whenever I want,” she says. “If I wake up and my body and brain just aren’t aligned, there’s no timeline, there’s no pressure.”

Her routine is simple. She wakes up, checks Printful, checks her website, answers emails, and handles any customer service issues. That takes a couple of hours each morning. Some days that’s all she does. Other days she goes harder.

“I’m not reinventing the wheel. I’m using the tools that Printful provides me, and they work.” For someone like Lacey, the platform’s straightforwardness makes it possible to run a full-time business.

Building something she is proud of

After two and a half years, Lacey is running her business full-time. The work has become part of her everyday life.

“I’m always on. This is what I do for a living, so it’s very natural to me. There’s nothing I’m doing that makes me think, ‘I can’t do this.’”

But reaching this point means more to Lacey than having a full-time business.

“I’m really, really proud of myself, and that’s not something I normally let myself experience. I’ve been through a lot, and I overcame all of that and built something really beautiful with thousands of people.”

Lacey wants to hold on to that pride. She could have let everything she went through define what came next. Instead, she built a business, found a community, and created something that matters to her.

“I just want to impact the world in a positive way while I’m here, and I just want to be proud of myself. And I am. So I’m just going to keep going with that.”

If you’re sitting on a print-on-demand idea and talking yourself out of it, Lacey would probably tell you to stop overthinking and just go. Sometimes, starting is the only way to find out where an idea can take you.