Even as L.S. Power Skating Inc. was paying full salaries to two top employees to teach techniques developed by legendary power skating coach Laura Stamm, and while the company was operating at a loss because of the Covid-19 pandemic, its employees were allegedly plotting to form a new company and go after the company’s customers.
Power Skating, of Thornwood, is demanding $2 million from Angelo Serse, Erik Kallio and Pro Stride Inc., in a complaint filed Oct. 28 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
Power Skating “was doing everything it could to make sure Serse and Kallio were being paid so that they could support their families,” the complaint states, as the men were forming Pro Stride and stealing customers.
Serse and Kallio did not respond to an email submitted through Pro Stride’s website asking for their side of the story.
Laura Stamm had been a competitive skater, and while coaching figure skaters at the practice rink used by the New York Rangers, she spent many hours watching hockey practices. In 1971, the team invited her to teach at its power skating school.
She honed techniques on the biomechanics of speed, agility and balance, and within a few years became the go-to coach for professional hockey players.
A hockey publication named her No. 98 on a list of 100 people who have changed the business of the National Hockey League.
Mark Pecchia studied with Stamm for 40 years, according to the complaint, beginning at age 9. In 2006, he formed L.S. Power Skating Inc. and bought rights to teach the Laura Stamm Power Skating System.
His company holds skating and stick-handling clinics for elite hockey players and coaches. Kallio was hired in 2007 and Serse in 2012 to teach Stamm’s techniques.
Both signed contracts, according to the complaint, promising to work only for Power Skating and to not organize or teach power skating clinics on their own.
In September 2020, they incorporated Pro Stride Inc. in Massachusetts, with Kallio, of Mansfield, Mass., as president and Serse, of Waldwick, New Jersey, as vice president.
They began scheduling clinics, according to the complaint, while representing themselves as acting on behalf of Power Skating.
Serse and Kallio allegedly contacted Power Skating’s insurance agent this past June to get a general liability certificate for an August skating clinic at Liberty University in Virginia, telling the agent that Pecchia had approved their request.
In September, Kallio and Serse told Pecchia that they were unable to coach at clinics in December, according to the complaint, while they were setting up their own clinics.
Serse and Kallio resigned from Power Skating on Oct. 21.
They hired Power Skating’s best instructors, Alex Ring and D.J. Walsh, and strength coach Timothy Sharpe, according to the complaint, and they took over Power Skating’s Instagram account, gaining 2,268 followers and more than 20,000 contacts.
Power Skating expended significant time and resources to develop contact lists, train certified instructors and develop 50 years of teaching methods to train professional hockey players, the complaint states, and Serse and Kallio stole the work.
Power Skating is represented by Armonk attorney Thomas B. Decea.
