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Photo of Best Dam Tape products in a hockey rink

Hockey, Sticking

Hockey, Sticking

Question: What do hockey and entrepreneurship have in common?

Answer: Logan Cuvo, a lifelong hockey player and junior Entrepreneurship and Innovation major in the Chambers College.

Those two passions are why Cuvo started Best Dam Tape, a hockey tape distributor that’s sold over $50,000 of product since its establishment in 2023.

“In the past year, Best Dam Tape has achieved major partnerships with teams like the Anaheim Ducks and Ohio State,” Cuvo said. “We have also started to introduce new, innovative tape options and eco-friendly wax. Having expanded across North America, the brand has become a trusted name for players of all levels."

His success was made possible by his passion for hockey, his education at WVU and the support he received from Chambers College outreach center Vantage Ventures, which gave him the tools needed to grow.

“Vantage Ventures provided essential capital, mentorship and strategic guidance to scale operations and expand the brand’s reach,” Cuvo said. “They also facilitated key introductions and helped create a scalable growth strategy which supported our market success.”

Do you have an entrepreneurial idea you want to pursue? Apply to the spring cohort of Vantage Ventures’ startup accelerator by December 15!

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Just like the COVID-19 vaccine protects against contracting the contagious virus, the collective elements of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency - otherwise known as “PsyCap” - helps inoculate employees from the negative effects of working through a pandemic, according to Jeffery Houghton, management professor. Houghton and two of his Ph.D. students, Richard Oxarart and Luke Langlinais, found that those lagging in PsyCap characteristics drifted to maladaptive behaviors and exhibited a high perception of stress. Read more at WVUToday.

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Twitter is more than rantin’ and ravin’ and snarky memes. It can influence stock returns, according to Alexander Kurov, professor and Fred T. Tattersall research chair in finance. Kurov and Chen Gu, a 2018 graduate of the finance doctoral program, found that firm-level Twitter content has information useful for predicting next-day stock returns, and that it is a stronger predictor of returns for firms with less analyst coverage. Their study, “ Informational role of social media: Evidence from Twitter sentiment,” is published in the Journal of Banking and Finance.

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How did a global megacompany decide to invest in the Mountain State in developing the transportation of the future? Well, we have the Chambers College, Vantage Ventures and its Executive Director Sarah Biller to thank for helping land Virgin Hyperloop. The company announced it would build a certification center spanning nearly 800 acres in Tucker and Grant counties. When completed, the Virgin Hyperloop system expects to carry passengers in pods through a vacuum tube at speeds breaking 600 mph. Read more about it in an upcoming feature story in 2021 in WVU Magazine. 

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