The Forzani Group Ltd., Canada’s largest sporting goods retailer and franchisor, cited fires in the British Colombia Province and power outages in Ontario as main contributors to its flat comparable store sales report for the Back-to-School selling period. Forzani measures BTS as the eight-week period ended September 28th, 2003.

Total sales for the period increased 6.2% over the same period last year. The last six weeks of the BTS season, which were not affected as much by the issues cited, total sales increased 7.7% over the same period in the prior year and comp store sales inched up 0.7%.

Reversing a recent trend, corporate comparable store sales were up 2.6% and franchise network were off 4.1% against double-digit increases in the prior year.


>>> You know you live in a global economy when some knucklehead at a power company outside of Cleveland impacts sneaker sales in Canada…