At the start of 2014 Discmania took a big leap forward in establishing our international presence. Prior to this year, our complete day-to-day representation had been handled solely from Finland. This naturally caused a problem, considering that a big chunk of our customers and our production was located in the US. With this in mind, we hired Erno Väyrynen and Ryan Rintala to create an actual presence in the US. Under the experienced guidance of Discmania CEO Jussi Meresmaa, Discmania USA was born. The fruits of this new office can been seen as improved customer service, stronger overall presence, US brand store, Deep in the Game US Tour and for example the fact that we were able to make the necessary arrangements so that Team Discmania's Simon Lizotte was able to live the life of a true touring professional in the US this year.
We here at Discmania take pride in considering ourselves as ambitious and hard working group of people. We get fired up by our mission to drive the sport of Disc Golf forward. We believe this sport requires professional level promotion to attract the players and businesses that boost this sport to the mainstream consciousness. #GrowTheSport can only carry a part of the load. The time has come to #PromoteTheSport.
If you don't believe us, just look at our home country of Finland - Disc Golf has gone from being a marginal sport almost no one had heard about to a national past time activity in the 5 years we have been actively promoting the sport. Our biggest tournaments are broadcasted live on national TV. You can go to pretty much any sporting goods store in Finland and find a vast selection of discs. Our course network has grown from sub 100 to over 420 in five years. Not bad for a country of 5,5 million people. To top everything off, Our CEO Jussi Meresmaa has been nominated for a "Sports culture deed of the year" in the very prestigious Finnish Sports Gala for leading the expansion of Disc Golf in Finland. If we have anything to do with it, what has happened in Finland will eventually happen in many other European countries and US too.
A big part of our success so far has been about finding the right people to work with. People who are passionate about the sport and share our vision. This is something we consider a matter of great importance when looking for new employees, promoters, associates and you guessed it: Team members. On this date we are proud to present you with 3 new additions, selected from over 200 applicants, to our US promotion team. All of these fellows have a bright future in this sport. All of them share our vision. All of them are Discmaniacs like us.
Eagle McMahon
Eagle is only 16 years old, but already super talented in Disc Golf. Hailing form Boulder, Colorado, Eagle is the current MPO Colorado State Champion and has a PDGA rating of 1008. Despite his young age, Eagle has played Disc Golf for 7 years already and racked up 12 career wins in PDGA sanctioned events. Make sure to keep this name in mind, because we are certain this will not be the last time your hear from this guy.
Connor Mitts
Connor is originally from Kansas, but currently resides in Fort Collins, Colorado. Connor is a member of Colorado State University's Disc Golf team and an active player and promoter of the sport in the region. He has only been a member of the PDGA for a little over 1,5 years, but already has the rating of 971. Connor is passionate about Disc Golf and we're very excited to have him on board.
Steve Pike
If you follow Discmania on social media, chances are this name rings a bell. Steve Pike may just very well be the biggest Discmaniac in North America, and we appreciate it more than our limited English vocabulary can express. Steve hails from Ottawa, Canada and in his 5-year journey as a Disc Golfer he has grown into one of the most influential promoters of the sport in Canada. While Steve may not have a 4-digit rating (at least yet), he is very ambitious about promoting the sport and Discmania in Canada. A big warm Canadian welcome to the team for Steve!