From golden beaches to the dust of a workshop

At six years old, Dominique Vallée already had her hair in the sails and her feet glued to a board . The sportswoman knows what she's talking about when it comes to boards: paddle (or SUP, stand-up paddle ), rigid or inflatable, water rescue, surfing, wakeboarding , and now wingboarding . "I ride at the top in my business!" she says offhand. "Dodo the Quebec shrimp," as her French athlete friends call her, is a true enthusiast.

So she surrounded herself with a team of "crazy people" like her to design and manufacture boards. "Even at -20, we dive into the icy Trois-Rivières river in front of the workshop to check if our products do exactly what we want them to do in the water!" she illustrates with a laugh. "There are several of us who also compete."

Designing high-performance boards

"I design, I manufacture, I test," says the former champion who always has performance on her watch face. Dominique now has complete control over production and can include the precise details that make all the difference. "I am able to make custom-made boards for athletes around the world because I know exactly what needs to be done to make the board infallible and adapt it to any body of water," confirms the silver medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo and gold in Rio in 2007. During her last Games, she integrated the still little-known paddle board into her training program.

In 2012, Dominique decided to start a company to promote SUP in Quebec. She then stepped up her efforts: that same year, she became a coach at the Fédération de voile du Québec. “Sleeping four hours a night, that’s totally me!” she laughs.

From athlete to entrepreneur

To give her project momentum, the trained kinesiologist contacted the CLD in her region. “They brought everyone together around a table and I presented my vision,” she recalls. “They helped me get started. Entrepreneurship really excited me. As with sports, there wasn’t much that scared me!” With a good reputation as an athlete, she easily obtained loans and grants.

Faced with the lack of paddleboards in Quebec, she first turned to Asia. “Seeing people’s interest in this sport, I started importing them more seriously,” explains Dominique. Which she did from 2012 to 2016, while still being a full-time coach, refusing to retire. “Having a business is like being in competition, but without dieting and without pain!” she assures.

Handmade and eco-responsible boards

Do Sport Inc. integrates local, natural and recycled materials into its products. “Bringing the production of rigid boards from China to Quebec has allowed us to put our environmental values at the heart of our company. Here, we manufacture our composites with recycled foam and slices of wood from Mauricie covered with epoxy resin.” The team of eight employees is constantly on the lookout for the latest techniques and trends in design and manufacturing. It creates its own molds in a traditional manner, with modern means.

“We are all creative, free spirits and nomads, so the designs and colours on the boards are amazing ! Some are even encrusted with stones! Our wakesurfs , hand-laminated since 2018, are true works of art! Very few people know how to do that. In 2019, we even developed a paddleboard adapted for people in wheelchairs. We are really proud to be the only ones in Canada to design and manufacture high-quality artisanal boards.”