George Edwin Tackaberry (May 6, 1874 - November 19, 1937) was a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
boot maker remembered today as the inventor of a long-lived brand of
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
skate
Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish
*Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae
* Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae
* Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongin ...
sold by
CCM called the CCM "Tack". (CCM "Tacks".)
Early life
Tackaberry apprenticed as a shoemaker in his home town of
Dresden, Ontario
Dresden is an agricultural community in southwestern Ontario, Canada, part of the municipality of Chatham-Kent. It is located on the Sydenham River. The community is named after Dresden, Germany. The major crops in the area are wheat, soybeans, r ...
. He moved to
Brandon, Manitoba
Brandon () is the second-largest city in the province of Manitoba, Canada. It is located in the southwestern corner of the province on the banks of the Assiniboine River, approximately west of the provincial capital, Winnipeg, and east of the ...
in 1892 with his wife Helen where he specialized in orthopaedic shoes for the handicapped.
Work with CCM
Tackaberry's neighbour
Joe Hall Joseph Hall may refer to:
Sports
* Joe Hall (American football) (born 1979), American football player
* Joe Hall (baseball) (born 1966), American baseball player
* Joe Hall (ice hockey) (1881–1919), Canadian ice hockey player
* Joe B. Hall (192 ...
, a professional hockey player, complained to Tackaberry about his hockey boots not lasting him the entire season without collapsing and in 1905 commissioned Tackaberry to make him a new, more durable pair of boots. Combining the natural strength of
kangaroo leather
Kangaroo leather is a strong light weight leather derived from the hide of the kangaroo.
Kangaroos are harvested. Both the meat and the hides are sold. Although hunting most species of macropod is prohibited, a small number of the large-sized ...
with a reinforced toe, Tackaberry had the winning combination. The following year in 1906, Tackaberry was flooded with orders from Hall's team members, the business took off from there and this specific style of boot became known as the Tackaberry.
With his passing in 1937, Tackaberry's wife Helen sold the patent to CCM. The boots, commonly called "CCM Tacks", remained CCM's primary skate until 2006, and are still on the market, and popular, today.
External links
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tackaberry, George
1874 births
1937 deaths
Businesspeople from Ontario
People from Chatham-Kent