Elemental is owned by the same owners as Island Surf and Sports, Symon Cousens and George Ketcham. This store has been open for 10 years, and offers a great variety of surf and skate boards, clothing, footwear, and safety gear. Also, Elemental offers both group and private lessons in surfing, windsurfing, kayaking and skateboarding. The friendly staff here will always do their best to help you find what you're looking for, while you peruse the most popular name brands in skating and surfing today.
Bennett Sports is a hockey pro shop located inside the Cranston Veterans Memorial Ice Rink on Phenix Avenue. The store was started in 1968 by Harvey Bennett Sr. after he retired from a 17-year career playing professional hockey. It is now run by his son Bill Bennett, who also played hockey professionally for the Boston Bruins and Hartford Whalers. Bennett Sports has a large selection of ice skates, hockey sticks, hockey masks, gloves, jerseys, clothing and other apparel related to the sport. The shop also repairs hockey equipment or ice skates and sharpens ice skates for $5. Parents can choose to enroll their children in Hockey School through Bennett Sports or get uniforms or jerseys embroidered with team names or other text through Bennett's embroidery shop.
East Bay Dive Center is the best dive shop in town (and not just because it is the only dive shop in town). Tucked away on Church Street, this cozy nook is the one-stop shop for divers in the East Bay.
Divers can get advice or share stories with store owner and dive instructor David Labrecque, or just stop in to say hi to his dog Anabelle. Labrecque can help divers book excursions, form group dives, fill tanks and service equipment.
East Bay Dive Center also collaborates with the Roger Williams University SCUBA club and offers PADI certifications and refresher courses for open water divers, advanced open water divers, night diving, deep diving, wreck diving, underwater photography, rescue diving and dive master.
In the summer months, divers can participate in dive center-hosted events such as the annual clambake and treasure hunt. For those looking to get away from New England's wacky winter weather, divers and non-divers can sign up for the annual winter dive vacation (the 2011 trip is to Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles from January 22-30).