Warrior Sports, Inc., doing business as Brine, is a sporting goods manufacturer in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It manufactures

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, and

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

equipment. It markets its products under its own brand as well as In The Crease for goals and goal accessories. The company was founded by W.H. Brine in 1922 as the W.H. Brine Company. It was privately owned by the Brine family and named Brine, Inc. before it was acquired by

New Balance New Balance Athletics, Inc. (NB), best known as simply New Balance, is one of the world's major sports footwear and apparel manufacturers. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the multinational corporation was founded in 1906 as the New Balance Arch ...

on August 4, 2006.

History

Foundation

Brine was founded in 1922 by W.H. Brine as the W.H. Brine Company. It started as a small sports equipment and uniform

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

. They sold to

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

s and regional camps, quickly growing to a major manufacturer of

and

equipment. The Brines the founder's family have been sports goods vendors first as retailers since 1867. James F. Brine's founded in 1867 in Cambridge, Massachusetts is currently located in Concord, Massachusetts.

1950s

During the 1950s Brine focused on

. Lacrosse sticks were all wooden at the time and the only company producing them was Chisholm Lacrosse which was located on the St. Regis Reservation, Cornwall Island,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. With the encouragement and assistance from A. MacDonald Murphy of

Governor Dummer Academy The Governor's Academy is an independent school north of Boston located on in the village of Byfield, Massachusetts, United States (town of Newbury), north of Boston. The Academy enrolls approximately 412 students in grades nine through twelv ...

, Ferris Thomsen, coach of Penn and

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

and Mort LaPointe of

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

, the Brine family began to explore the possibilities of manufacturing lacrosse sticks.

1960s

Brine started to manufacture soccer balls and equipment in the 1960s. It was the first company to cover the ball with synthetic leather to make it more durable. It was also the first to make a perfectly round bladder and the first to unconditionally guarantee a ball.

1970s

Attempting to make a lacrosse stick that was durable and easy to make, the Brine family experimented with laminated wood, plastic, fiberglass and aluminum but could not find a material that met the performance standards. They continued to experiment and eventually found

Surlyn An ionomer () ('' iono-'' + ''-mer'') is a polymer composed of repeat units of both electrically neutral repeating units and ionized units covalently bonded to the polymer backbone as pendant group moieties. Usually no more than 15 mole percent ...

, a

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

plastic, to have the necessary properties to survive the intensity of lacrosse. Brine then developed a molding technique that was the basic draft shape of the standard in modern sticks.

Cascade

In 1986 Bill Brine left the family's company and founded Cascade, now the largest lacrosse helmet and eyewear company in the world.

Recent years

Brine started an

apparel Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

line and a line of

equipment in the 1990s. In 2000, it released a full line of

equipment. Brine began to make lacrosse helmets and eyemasks in 2003. Also in 2003, Brine acquired In The Crease, a lacrosse goal and accessories company based in

Penn Yan, New York Penn Yan is an incorporated village and the county seat of Yates County, New York, United States. The population was 5,159 at the 2010 census. It lies at the north end of the east branch of Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. Penn Yan, New York ...

and in 2004 it began making

athletic footwear Sneakers (also called trainers, athletic shoes, tennis shoes, gym shoes, kicks, sport shoes, flats, running shoes, or runners) are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but which are now also widely used f ...

. On August 4, 2006,

acquired Brine and shortly after that the name was changed to Brine, Corp. from Brine, Inc.

Video Game

In 2005, they released the first mobile lacrosse video game, titled

Brine Lacrosse ''Brine Lacrosse'' (sometimes also called ''Brine LAX'') is a lacrosse mobile game. Development It is the first lacrosse game ever made for mobile phones and the second ever lacrosse video game on any platform (the first being Blast Lacrosse) ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

Brine Official WebsiteBrine Sporting Goods Official Website
Brine Sporting Goods is a retailer founded by W.H. Brine's grandfather Sportswear brands Manufacturing companies established in 1922

Manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...

Shoe companies of the United States Sporting goods manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Massachusetts Clothing companies established in 1922