Cooper Canada

Cecil John Weeks, a nephew by marriage of General Leather Goods owner R.H. Cameron, worked with Cameron, who had founded the company in 1905. Jack Cooper, who also worked with GLG, joined Weeks in purchasing the company in 1949. (Cooper had joined the company of 15 employees in 1932 as their first salesman) The company was re-styled as Cooper Weeks. In 1954 Jack Cooper bought out his partner, Cecil Weeks, but the company continued to be named 'Cooper-Weeks' until 1971, when it was changed to Cooper Canada to coincide with the company going 'public' with 40% of its shares being traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Cooper Canada was sold to Charon Industries in 1987.

Product criticism

Some Cooper products met with limited consumer acceptance. A hockey pant and girdle called Cooperalls, Cooper hinged DG32 shin pads, and the Cooper XL7 helmet have been named by critics among the worst hockey products of all time, though its widely unknown that Cooperalls became a surprisingly popular design in junior hockey and the Canadian sports of ringette and broomball. Cooperalls have not only had newer designs based on Cooper Canada's initial concept, but started an official trend in the sport of ringette; today, long sport pants for wear on the ice, a.k.a. "ringette pants" are now the accepted official part of an equipment kit in the sports ringette and broomball. They were designed by Steve Copeland and Len Clement of Cooper Design Group.

Though used in the National Hockey League, the Cooper XL7 helmet met with particular criticism as being unsafe because of a plastic clip that could break upon face checking or puck impacts, detaching the faceguard. (This same faceguard is now prized among collectors for its use in the construction of replicas of Crow T. Robot, the puppet robot from the 1990s television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.)