TSN's RIck Westhead reports a shocking development in the realm of hockey equipment:

The parent company of the iconic hockey brand Bauer has been accused of fraud and stock market manipulation, and prominent NHL player agents are scrambling to find out more information about the allegations.

According to a lawsuit against Performance Sports Group, or PSG, which owns the Bauer and Easton brands, the company relied on a practice called “channel stuffing” to falsify revenue and net income and to hide the true state of its business, according to an amended claim against the company filed this week.

The lawsuit was filed in New York district court and comes as PSG disclosed on Wednesday that it is under investigation by securities regulators in the U.S. and Canada. The lawsuit alleges PSG moved future orders into earlier financial quarters by pressuring hockey retailers to accept sticks, skates and other product they did not need to increase the company’s sales.

The lawsuit names former PSG chief executive Kevin Davis and one-time chief financial officer Amir Rosenthal as defendants. Plumbers & Pipefitters National Pension Fund, a PSG shareholder, is named as a lead plaintiff in the case.

"…They knowingly or recklessly engaged in acts, transactions, practices and courses of business which operated as a fraud and deceit …" the lawsuit says.

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