The Bezanson family’s business is sporting goods. Led by Eric and Anne Bezanson and their three sons, Cleve’s Source for Sports has grown from a single store on the corner of Argyle and Blowers streets in Halifax to an 18-store chain that has lasted in the rough and tumble world of retail for nearly 50 years. 

Who knew there was a Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame, but there sure is one with plenty of high-profile members, which now includes the owner of the iconic Cleve’s brand in the Maritimes.

Eric Bezanson, recently retired boss of the well-known Cleve’s Source for Sports chain, was recently selected for entry into the sporting goods hall of fame and is scheduled to be officially inducted into the hall next May.

He joins John Forzani of The Forzani Group and Jack Cooper of Cooper International, Inc., as Canadian members of the Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame.

Bezanson, who admits to being in his early 80s, officially retired three years ago but he still shows up most mornings for a cup of coffee with the staff at the Cleve’s offices in Dartmouth’s Burnside Business Park.

He says the selection to the hall of fame is “quite an honour.”

Bezanson has been selling sporting equipment for much of his life. He grew up in Brooklyn Corner, just a few kilometres south of Kentville. Active in sports as a youth, he eventually found a job working for T.P. Calkin Ltd. in Kentville.

Calkin was primarily a wholesale hardware business at that time, he says, but the management there decided they wanted to get into the sporting goods business. Bezanson was put in charge of a small sporting goods store in Kentville.

Most the sporting goods sales in those days, he says, were guns and ammunition. “They’d bring them (guns) in by the (rail) carload,” says Bezanson. It also sold hockey sticks and fishing equipment.

Part of his job as store manager was as a buyer, which required Bezanson to attend various buyers’ events, where he made industry connections.

At one of those sporting goods shows in Montreal, Mike Zatzman, the brother of the former Dartmouth mayor Joe Zatzman, then owner of Halifax-based Cleve’s indicated he was thinking of selling his business, which was just one little store at the corner of Argyle and Blowers streets in downtown Halifax. 

After some consideration, Bezanson says he and his wife Anne decided to take the plunge and they packed up their young family for Halifax in late 1971.

“It was quite a move because we had two small boys, Kevin and Greg, and Peter was just born.” Today, Kevin is the president of Cleve’s Source for Sports, Peter is a buyer for the company and Greg operates a cresting business on the institutional side of the business.

Bezanson officially acquired Cleve’s in 1972 and soon afterward he started switched around the product selection.

“When we first took over we had guns, but there wasn’t much margin in guns and the rules and regulations got stiffer every year … as it needed to be,” he says. “We just decided to get rid of the guns and then we decided to get rid of the fishing tackle. Fishing is a good business but unless you’re into it really big … most of the smaller stores went out of that (fishing tackle) business because just wasn’t that (sale) volume there.”

When he took over Bezanson found that a lot of Cleve’s inventory was out of date, he says. “Cleve’s hadn’t been keeping up with trends.”

For example, although the Speedo brand was and is a top-selling brand in swimming, he says, the former owners were stubbornly trying to sell another brand. “We couldn’t give it away,” he says.

There was also a bit of luck involved. At about the same time he took over Cleve’s there was also a shift in the sportswear market with the start of the fitness boom. Bezanson says although he had successfully sold the Converse sneaker brand for many years, he brought in newer brands more popular brands like Adidas, and eventually Nike, which provided greater sales.

Cleve’s biggest sales categories quickly became shoes and hockey equipment.

“We used to get so many customers come in from outside the city, like Bridgewater and Antigonish, so people would say: ‘Why don’t you open a store here?’ One thing kind of led to another pretty well,” says Bezanson.

The expansion began with the introduction of the Lower Sackville store, followed by Bridgewater and then Antigonish. Today there are 18 stores throughout the Maritimes.

Cleve’s joined a major buying group out of Toronto in about 1976 and a few years later, to reflect that association with the buying group, the company’s brand was changed to Cleve’s Source for Sports.

The retail business has its ups and downs and Bezanson says there were some rough times during the 1980s but that was nothing compared to the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This was the roughest period. All our stores were closed for about three months,” says Bezanson. “We did a little through the internet but people still like to come into that store and try on the stuff we sell, skates and other stuff. They want someone trained, to help fit them.”

Kevin, president of the company, wants to increase Cleve’s sales over the internet according to his father, adding that he isn’t so sure thinks people don’t still want to come in and try things on.

Bezanson is hoping the pandemic ends soon, so that life and sports can get back to normal.

“It would be great to get hockey back.”