HAY RIVER - The product line may not be new, but the sellers are.

Pat Williams and Matt Morse of Hay River will open a new store, Monster Recreational Products, on the Mackenzie Highway later this week. A grand opening for Monster will follow on Oct. 19.

General manager Pat Williams, left, and sales manager Matt Morse of Monster Recreational Products, which will open its doors in Hay River later this week, promote their store at the recent Hay River Transportation Show. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

The store will offer Bombardier Ski-Doos, Can-Am quads (ATVs) and Evinrude outboard motors, all of which fall under the Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) banner. The Bombardier line was sold to Williams and Morse by the Hay River Kingland Ford auto dealership in August.

The opening will be a first for both Williams and Morse, as neither has run his own store before.

Williams used to work as manager of marine engineering for Northern Transportation Company Ltd. (NTCL).

"The opportunity was there and it was about time to do something different," said Williams of the transition.

Not that part of him isn't sweating.

"It's a different industry so it's a learning curve," said Williams, who will manage the store. "BRP has a lot of training that has to be done. We're carrying three product lines. BRP owns all three but there's different training for each one."

Morse, who will act as sales manager, said the small time window between getting the interior of the store ready and the opening day is the biggest challenge standing before them.

"Right now, things are going fairly smooth," Morse said earlier this month.

"The only thing is getting into our building. We're hoping to get in next week and start setting up our parts department, our shop, our offices, our shelving and putting out our floor plan."

"It's a lot of work to do in a short period of time," added Williams.

The team has already started getting its name out in the public. They had a booth at the recent Start Your Engines Hay River Transportation Show in the community arena, their products on full-display.

Morse said he believes the market for their vehicles is waiting for them.

"There's an assortment of people who will use them for recreation only, purely to get out on a weekend, ride around and go out for picnics," he said.

But mining companies with stakes nearby, like Tamerlane Ventures, will also likely get in line, Morse added.

"They'll probably use them to survey some of their lines, as well as tending to some of their sites and getting to equipment that's out in the field," he said. "It's a lot easier to use a snowmobile than it is to use a truck."