Borje Salming running shoes entering Canada

Borje Salming is a known character around Toronto, having played 16 seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1970s and ’80s, but his brand of running shoes are less know. The sporting good company he founded under his own name back in his native Sweden, a popular floorball outfitter, has also had success making light-weight running shoes, built off their design of other court shoes.

“If we can make a great indoor court shoe that, technology-wise, is very difficult to do. All the athletes across all these other sports also run, including the Salming guys,” said Juha Mikkola, founder of Clutch Sports Co., Canada’s Salming distributor. “A lot of them read Born to Run and thought it was a real inspiration — it was for me as well — and kind of figure there had to be a better way to do this.”

The shoes the company designed are a light, low-profile shoes that has enough stability to be worn for long runs without injury but moves away from more traditional, bulky running shoes. They are flexible in the forefoot and stronger towards the heel.

The brand has taken off in Sweden, being backed by some of the country’s big stars and founded by Borje Salming, a sports icon. There they can be found in major retail stores. They’ve also has success in England, but the brand hasn’t caught on in Canada. Most of their running shoe sales are done online or at race expos.

Mikkola thinks it’s only a matter of time before they catch on in Canada.

“We know and believe there is a lot of good things to like in our shoes,” says the Clutch Sports founder, who goes to Sweden four times each year to meet with product developers. “We get feedback all the time about the support, the feeling of it and the way Salming has done all their shoes very similar.”

Clutch Sports has been distributing Salming floorball gear in Canada since 2002 and also all the Hockey Canada floorball gear is made specifically for the Canadian market, through Clutch Sports.

The shoes can be found at various race expos around Canada and online through the Clutch Sports website.