A couple weeks ago on Trazee Travel, managing editor Aoife O’Riordan wrote about former NHL star Brooks Laich starting World Playground, an online travel booking platform.  Wanting to learn more about it while also discussing hockey, I contacted Laich about a Talking Travel interview.

A native of Wawota, Saskatchewan, Canada, Laich was selected by the Ottawa Senators in the 2001 NHL draft. He made his NHL debut in the 2003–04 season, appearing in one game for the Senators before being traded to the Washington Capitals. He went on to play 12 seasons for the Capitals before ending his career with short stints with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Los Angeles Kings before retiring.

We started the interview with a bit of hockey talk. Laich told an interesting story of his first hockey card. He also gave a couple of his favorite moments in his career.

In our interview Laich spoke of all the traveling he did after his retirement. Having previously been focused on his playing career, Laich took advantage of his newfound freedom to travel to Africa, Iceland and several other destinations.

Laich started turning his passion for travel into a business in 2020 when he launched World Playground with cofounder and current COO Jeff Shafar. After quickly concluding travelers were overpaying, he really saw the direction of the company. World Playground never adds commission to travel. Less cost to the traveler means more travel.

World Playground could very easily add cost to its services, but Laich and his team are adamantly against that. Laich’s passion for his own travel extends to passion to get others traveling and at a lower cost. During the interview Laich pumped his fist and nearly jumped out of his chair a couple times, barely containing his enthusiasm. How often do you see a CEO do that, especially one who reduces his own profit to the benefit of his clients? Just as our interview ended, Laich extended it with a little more travel and hockey talk. This wasn’t a standard promotion interview because World Playground isn’t just a business for Laich. He is a rare breed, and World Playground is a rare platform.

World Playground is for every level of traveler and travel. Laich reiterated what he stated in the Trazee Travel article. “World Playground is about making the world more affordable and accessible for all.”

There are two more interesting facts about World Playground I did not cover in the interview because I couldn’t squeeze in everything. The company name came from Laich’s autograph habit.  Wanting to give a bit more with each autograph, Laich started adding “The world is your playground!” Little did he realize how prophetic that would be.

Also, the company logo is Laich’s Siberian husky, Koda. After adopting Koda in 2018, Laich made a promise to take him around the world and give him the best life possible. That also became the goal of World Playground. Now with an infant daughter, Laich is excited about bringing her everywhere, too.

Talking Travel is an interview series on Global Traveler. Subscribe to the GT YouTube channel to be notified of all future interviews and other travel-related videos.

— John Wroblewski, online writer