Every screen printer in Central Ohio chases football, basketball and wrestling. Nobody calls the bowling coach. Meanwhile bowling, ice hockey and gymnastics all start in November, all have families who want the shirt, and all share the same problem: a roster too small for a bulk order to make sense. Here's how each one actually gets outfitted — and why a small roster is the best argument for a team store, not the worst.
Bowling: twelve athletes, twelve families
High-school bowling is ten to twelve bowlers, a season from November to February, and a coach who's usually a teacher doing it on the side. The order is simple and the identity matters more than the volume:
- Match-day polo or performance tee — the shirt they bowl in. Embroidered left chest or a printed logo, school colors. This is the one piece every program needs.
- A warm layer for the lanes — quarter-zip or hoodie for the bench between frames and the bus in January.
- One practice tee. One-color print.
- Parent gear. Bowling parents sit twenty feet from the lane for three hours. They want to match.
Twelve shirts is a normal order here, not a minimum problem. The right print method for a dozen pieces is different from the right one for a hundred, and we pick it so a small order stays sensible.
Ice hockey: club-run, parent-ordered
Hockey in Central Ohio isn't run by the athletic office. It's a club with a parent board, a treasurer paying for ice time, and a volunteer manager doing the ordering. That changes everything about how gear gets bought — one organized order, one link, nobody fronting money:
- Warm-ups — heavyweight fleece hoodie, quarter-zip and joggers for the 5:45 a.m. walk from the parking lot. Embroidered left chest, number on the sleeve.
- Dryland and locker-room tees — two or three per player, under the pads and for off-ice workouts.
- Beanies — the one item every hockey family buys. Players, parents, siblings.
- Parent gear — rinks are cold; parents buy layers.
Jerseys, socks and equipment come from a hockey supplier. Everything worn off the ice, we do — and for a club paying its own ice time, the fundraiser version of a team store is real money.
Gymnastics: alone on the beam, together on the walk-in
Gymnasts compete one at a time and show up as a team — matching warm-ups on the march-in, matching tees at the chalk bucket. Rosters are small, families are committed, and the gear leans fitted:
- Warm-up jacket or quarter-zip and joggers — the podium-walk set. Embroidered left chest, name on the sleeve.
- Meet-day and practice tees — fitted performance tees, often a set by day of the week.
- Team crewneck or hoodie — the layer after the last routine.
- Parent gear — meets run four rotations; parents dress for them.
Leotards, grips and competition attire come from a gymnastics supplier. Everything worn over and around them, we do. Fit is the conversation to have before the store opens — fitted cuts run small, and we send a size chart for every piece so nobody guesses.
Why a small roster should still use a team store
Coaches of small programs assume a team store is for football. It's the opposite. With eighty athletes, a bulk order and a size sheet is annoying; with twelve, it's a coach personally collecting twelve checks and guessing twelve sizes for a program that never has booster money. A team store fixes all of it:
- Every family orders their own size and pays online. The coach never touches money.
- Parent and sibling gear goes in the same store, which is how a 12-athlete program ends up with 40 items sold.
- Run it as a straight store at your quoted pricing, or as a fundraiser: $5 from every item — standard — goes back to the program when the store closes. For a program that rarely sees a dollar from the booster club, that's the first money it's ever had.
- We sort by athlete and deliver to the school, the rink or the gym. Nobody's garage fills with boxes.
Timing for all three
Bowling, hockey and gymnastics all open practice around November 1, with first matches, games and meets in late November or early December. Artwork and rough roster numbers by mid-October; the store opens then and runs about two weeks; production and delivery late October to mid-November. The sport-by-sport calendar is in the winter sports ordering timeline.
Sport pages with sample packages and the quote link: bowling · ice hockey · gymnastics. One email, one person, one answer — even for twelve shirts.