GOLD WINNER
EastCoast Kicks1658 Bedford Highway
website
SILVER WINNER
John David ShoesPark Lane Mall, 5657 Spring Garden Road
website
BRONZE WINNER
Pro Skateboards & Snowboards6451 Quinpool Road
website
When John Connors started selling sneakers in 2017, it was out of the back of his truck—so to have expanded to his own retail store in the Bedford Place Mall, doubling the square footage of his last brick-and-mortar, is still a little surreal. “I look back on my graduating [high school] yearbook, and I was [voted] most likely to be homeless with 15 pairs of shoes… and I've got a lot more than 15 pairs of shoes,” he says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “So I'm doing alright.” A sneakerhead before he even knew the term—one of his favourite pairs is the Bred Jordan 1s he wore for his daughter’s birth—Connors prides himself on bringing hard-to-find pairs to Halifax, but also the relationships he’s built with customers he’s known for half a decade. “I’ve sold some big ones, and to some pretty cool names,” he says, “but I got into this to make people happy. I've had kids that have come in when they're spending their parents’ money on pairs of shoes, and now they're coming in and spending their own hard-earned money. And it does nothing but make [both] of us happy.”