Co-Branded Ottawa Senators, Canadian Tire Promotional Onesies Recalled for Choking Risk

By Joseph Myers

The 2017-18 season yielded few memorable moments for the Ottawa Senators, who, by earning only 67 points, found themselves left to vie for supremacy in the National Hockey League’s draft lottery, where they will have the fourth overall selection. While the team, which finished one game shy of reaching the Stanley Cup Finals a year ago, plots its return to prominence, it cannot fully put its most recent campaign behind it, as Health Canada yesterday announced the recall of promotional onesies that the franchise had co-branded with Canadian Tire.

As the Senators’ unfortunate journey commenced in October and November, the Eastern Conference club, through the aforementioned business, made the garments available at the latter’s participating outlets. Intended to inspire the squad’s next generation of fans, the products, which the co-branders offered through a voucher on the Senators’ website, instead became a sobering experience for Reward Connections Inc. An Ontario-based entity like the hockey team and its commercial partner, the company manufactured about 5,000 of the promotional onesies, distributing approximately 2,400 of them, yet, if press accounts prove far-reaching enough, it will soon be receiving them all back, as one report, thus far, noted that metal snaps on the apparel goods, sized at six months old, could detach and cause a choking hazard.

Health Canada recalls thousands of Sens onesies for choking risk https://t.co/ov3YPqnMS3 pic.twitter.com/KhcUADJVsS

— Ottawa Citizen (@OttawaCitizen) June 5, 2018

As the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act prohibits redistributing, selling or giving away any recalled products, the promotional onesies that bear the Senators’ logo on the front and Canadian Tire’s emblem on the right sleeve, will end up as an also-ran attempt to encourage admiration for hockey. Based on the frenzy that this season has created, especially as the Washington Capitals close in on their first Stanley Cup title at the expense of the Vegas Golden Knights (we still believe you can come back, guys!), the promotional onesies would have made a favorable impression on end-users in Ontario’s capital city, but, sadly, it is receiving the promotional products industry’s version of a lifetime suspension.

For more information, consumers should contact Reward Connections Inc. at either (905) 238-8445 or customerservice@rewardconnections.com.