Springs are in our steps...

Work work work... it just doesn't stop! But all for the better! After a busy Christmas in 2012, we entered a period of figuring out which products we needed for the seasons in 2013. Heads down and air tickets booked, The Boss Man travelled a reasonable portion of the globe in search of all things Cool Chess! And he found them!  In the latter portion of last year we introduced...

Our Chess Set Collections Are Expanding...

The summer has been an amazing labor of love! From The Boss Man moving house, to The Photo Guy getting new equipment and a new studio, to new products being received from across the ocean. We waited and waited for them to be manufactured and then delivered, and then we delved into the pieces and boards to see if the chess sets we dreamed up would actually work. The final...

Something is brewing...

Summer is well and truly here. While chess is still in the air, many clubs and organizations have shut up shop until the cool of the Fall hits us. The Web Guy has starting his training program to get in shape for the winter tournament season, and the Warehouse Crew are busy organizing products that have been shipped to us from what seems like all corners of the world.  During...

Time and time again...

Quite a hectic few weeks! You may have noticed that the website had a little bit of an update - phase one of hopefully many updates that are designed to deliver a fantastic shopping experience for our customers. Much of the work that has appeared on the website is because of The Photo Guy! We looked at outsourcing our photography for the website, but made an educated decision that we...

Blog by the wayside...

Phew! It's been a long time since we updated the blog. Most often you hear warm words of wisdom from those in the know - if you have a blog, update it regularly. If you have a blog, make sure you don't let it get stale. Well, we dropped the ball on this one! So first of all our apologies. We will try not to let it happen again! Hopefully...

The Master of Chess Pieces

One of the most monumental meetings that we could ever have hoped for happened this week. We took a short commute from our offices to meet with a true master of wood. A business associate, and now a friend, traveled from Amritsar, India, especially to visit with us and show us samples from his 2012 collection. His journey took him via the United Kingdom and the USA, where he met...

The DGT 960 Chess clock is here!

This ultra portable pocket sized clock arrives in a tiny 14.5 x 7.5 x 3 cm (6 x 3 x 1.25 inch) package. That’s smaller than I was expecting. The DGT 960 box is nice quality with glossy paper, and comes shrink wrapped. The text on the box mentions how easy it is to use the clock, and touts the new way to play (i.e. Chess960, or Fischer Random Chess). Luckily for...

New Wood Pieces Are Here!

It's been a long hard journey to bring new wood pieces to the store. Ordering, shipping, and importing are rife with problems that have to be solved and many issues that occur are out of our control. You can't hurry the process, and the estimated time of delivery becomes longer and longer with the unforeseen problems that keep cropping up. Finally, at the beginning of January, we took stock of...

Thank You So Very Much...

The holding company that owns Cool Chess Canada was formed at the beginning of February, 2011. The Cool Chess Canada store first appeared online in mid-June, around four months later. The momentum that resulted in the store had been building since early fall, 2010.  A great deal of time, energy, and money had been invested in finding and building relationships with manufacturers, buying and importing products, developing a roadmap for...

Introducing a very cool solid wood chess set...

We've been busy packing up your Christmas chess equipment, so sorry for the delay in adding another blog article. Indeed I'm keeping it short this week otherwise Santa might be late with his chess sets. In the last article, I detailed small and beautiful chess sets that are in the 15x15 inch range. These veneer chess sets provide great playability in a smaller space. The 2.75 inch chess pieces are just the right...

Small is beautiful!

Oftentimes I just don't want to cart a large chess set around with me. For a start, I don't own a bag big enough for a 20x20 inch wooden chess board. That particular board size is always bigger than I think it is. It looks great on the living room table and it's great for an evening of blitz or a long game with a buddy, but for a quick...

Plastic chess sets rock!

Since we opened Cool Chess Canada, our customers have been enjoying our range of plastic chess sets. Plastic sets are an amazingly durable product that stand up to repetitive and rough game play, pounding analysis, blitz, tournaments, and any other chess related abuse you can think of. They are the mainstay of schools and clubs. We recently received a call from one of our customers asking us to add a product to...

Chess is just child's play!

At a recent chess tournament, The Web Guy had the privilege of playing some of the youngest competitors he has faced in his short career as a tournament player. The five round swiss tournament saw him battle with only two adults, while his other three opponents were all under the age of ten. After attaining two draws with each of the adults, The Web Guy faced a tiny boy who could barely...

Winter ahoy!

It's amazing to think that winter is almost here after what seems a very short summer. Only a few weeks ago we were sitting on the lawn at a friend's cottage, sipping beverages and playing blitz chess late into the evening. The aroma of the BBQ has subsided and the smell mashed potatoes and roast floats over the chessboard as we ply our battles next to a glowing fireplace. For...

You should try a chess tournament too!

The Web Guy is now addicted to the face-to-face pursuit that is the chess tournament. He found it quite an adventure to be serious about chess last weekend. The competition was stiff, but he learned a great deal from his first foray into the world of competitive chess.  He composed a few rules for those wishing to head into the unknown like he did... Rule number 1: Just give it...

Chess Tournaments.

We're pretty proud of The Web Guy. Truth be told he's pretty new to the world of chess. We used him as a guinea pig while authoring the content of our soon-to-be-released eBook. It's a book by amateurs for amateurs, and the result of this experimentation is that The Web Guy will take part in his first chess tournament this coming weekend. He will battle his way through a five round...