The web page Quebec hockey parents open every week: how Retroaction got into Canada's top one thousand with "one association signs, the whole family comes"
What it is A French-language management website and app for Quebec youth sports associations: tryout scoring, team assignments, schedules, roll call, and parent notifications.
Why it's growing Associations post their official schedules and attendance there, so hundreds or thousands of families have to check it every week. This ranking rise is mainly driven by the seasonal pickup from 8–September tryout camps and the start of hockey season.
CHow you could approach it Don't copy the whole platform; copy the "tryout evaluation" wedge. Find a region and sport where there is no good tool in the local language and associations still score tryouts in Excel. Offer free evaluation and team assignments to a few associations first, then expand to the full season's schedule, and pitch before the local tryout season starts.
Global rank 104k · 90 days ago 465k
Retroaction is a French-language sports association management tool built by a small Quebec company of 2 to 10 people: tryout scoring, team assignments, schedules, roll call, and parent notifications. Its global ranking climbed from 690k to 100k between August and November. It looks like a newly emerged site, but it has been around for a decade, and this rise is mainly due to the start of hockey season. What's worth looking at is its approach: it doesn't go after parents; it signs up the association first, and then parents have no choice but to check schedules here. Below I explain what it is, why the ranking rose this round, how it charges, and whether others can replicate it.
A snowstorm: where do parents check whether games are cancelled?
The SLQNE minor hockey league in northeastern Quebec answers "Do games still happen if it snows?" on its website FAQ:
If the city closes the rink or roads are impassable, cancellations are sent directly as push notifications through the Rétroaction app, and also posted on our social media. If you didn't get a notification, the activity goes ahead as scheduled.
The same page says: "The official regular-season schedules are all hosted on the Rétroaction platform." If a child will miss a practice or game, parents "must mark the absence on that event in Rétroaction as early as possible" (slqne.com FAQ, 11-07).
The other associations are the same. The Drummondville Minor Hockey Association's registration notice from May 2026 27 ends with: "This 4 season, we are using the Rétroaction platform to update team assignments and schedules. Please use it to follow your child's team and game times." (hockeydrummondville.com)
That is where its traffic comes from: once an association signs on, hundreds or thousands of families have to come back several times a week to check times and report attendance. Parents have no choice.
Why the ranking suddenly rose
Start with the numbers. On Tranco (global website ranking), it went Jul 30 340k, Aug 13 down to 690k, Sep 10 500k, Oct 1 230k, Nov 5 104k. Chrome real-user data (bucketed by traffic) is also U-shaped: May in the global top 100k bucket, 6 and July dropped to the top 500k, and September rose to the top 50k; in Canada, it hit the top 1,000 bucket in September.
The curve follows the hockey season. Quebec minor hockey runs selection camps (camps de sélection) from late August to September each year, with the season opening in late September and October, and almost nobody shows up over the summer. Similar Canadian sports sites rose over the same period: Hockey Québec's registration system Spordle went from 188k to 115k, and the electronic scoresheet GameSheet went from 248k to 146k. Retroaction has the biggest swings because its users only show up during the season.
So is it actually growing? There's a hint: September's real-user bucket was one tier above May (the end of last season), going from global top 100k to top 50k, and in Canada from top 5,000 to top 1,000. But there's no comparable figure from last fall, so whether it's year-over-year growth is unclear (inference). It now ranks ahead of Spordle on Tranco; in Canada, big North American names like TeamSnap and TeamLinkt were still in the top 5,000 bucket over the same period.
The app is a small part. The Google Play version went up in December 2021 years ago, with 60k cumulative installs and 7 more in the last 242 days (Google Play, 11-07). The iOS version has only 12 ratings in Canada. Parents mostly use the web: each association has a public schedule page that needs no login, at retroaction.ca/Schedule/Index/<association code>, which Google indexes. Search for terms like "hockey mineur horaire" and these pages often show up at the top.
How it gained a foothold
It starts with the one painful job that happens once a year. Each year, during selection camps, associations have evaluators score dozens or hundreds of kids, then sort them into AA, BB, A levels and teams. Hockey Canada's official guide only describes the paper process, and most associations use Excel to tally results. Retroaction lets evaluators score on their phones, shows rankings live, automatically "balances" teams by score, and sends results to parents. The pain is real, and it comes back on schedule every August.
Once it wins the evaluation, it brings in the rest of the year. Since the association has already imported its roster, schedules, attendance, notices, chat and equipment check-out naturally go there too. The schedule is what drives frequent visits; evaluation is just the door opener.
COVID gave it a push. From 2020 to 21, Hockey Québec required attendance records and COVID self-assessments for every event. Retroaction released "COVID-era attendance," and associations like Saint-Lambert and Wedgewood-Dorion used it (association notices on page.spordle.com). Its website athlete count went from 2020 in August 41,396 to "100k+" in August 2022 (web archive), and the app launched at the end of 2021.
It doesn't compete with the official system. Registration and payment happen on Spordle, the system Hockey Québec designates. Many associations' websites also run on Spordle or the local site builder Publication Sports, and link out from there. Retroaction only handles internal operations after registration, and can import rosters from the official system.
Its association directory currently lists about 160 hockey associations, 92 baseball, 64 figure skating, 43 soccer, plus ringuette, swimming, basketball, volleyball and speed skating (retroaction.ca directory, 11-07, by link count, approximate).
Where the money comes from
Two legs: per-athlete subscription fees, plus ads.
| Tier | Price (CAD/athlete/month) | What you get beyond the free tier |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | Up to 50 people; groups, schedule, attendance, app |
| Bronze | 0.50 | Unlimited people, tech support, chat rooms, evaluation and result delivery |
| Argent (recommended) | 0.60 | Custom import, multi-association networking, surveys, equipment check-out, substitute management |
| Or | 0.75 | Training plans, video, awards, participation commitment forms |
| Ad-free | +0.15 | Members across the whole association no longer see ads |
Source: retroaction.ca/Prix, 11-07.
Evaluation sits in the paid tier; the free layer only gives schedules and attendance, so an association that wants to use it for scoring has to pay. A 300-person association on Argent pays a bit over 2,000 CAD a year (estimate, based on 12 months; they may bill only during the season). Associations that don't pay for ad-free see ads every time parents check the schedule. The site's ad-consent popup lists 66 partners, and the Google Play listing is marked as containing ads.
Its revenue and how many associations pay are not visible from outside. The homepage figures "100k+ athletes, 350k+ reviews" haven't changed since 2022, so they can't be taken as current scale. No funding reports, no media coverage, and nobody on X mentioned it in 90 days. Apart from Quebec sports associations and parents, almost nobody knows it exists.
Who it's competing with
| Competitors | Scale | How it differs from Retroaction |
|---|---|---|
| Spordle | Tranco 115k; team app 2025-06 on iOS | Hockey Québec's official registration and league system. It is building a team app on its own, which is Retroaction's biggest threat |
| TeamSnap | Google Play 6.11M installs | English, organized around individual teams, with no association-level selection scoring or team sorting |
| TeamLinkt | Google Play 490k installs | Also free with ads and aimed at associations, but English and mostly western Canada; evaluation has to be connected separately |
| RAMP InterActive | Google Play 83k installs | Registration and league platform for English-speaking Canada |
| Spond, SportsEngine, Heja | Google Play 1.74M to 4.84M installs | General team communication app; no evaluation, and doesn't understand Quebec association workflows |
| SkillShark, TeamGenius, Evalu8 | Far lower traffic in Canada than Retroaction | Selection evaluation only, in English, priced in USD |
| Amilia, Qidigo, Publication Sports, GameSheet | — | Registration fees, association websites, electronic scoring; mostly complementary |
As far as I can see, Retroaction is currently the only one that covers French, Quebec-local, association-level, and the whole chain of evaluation, team sorting, and full-year schedules and attendance. I also haven't seen anyone copying it.
If it were you
C: The approach is worth learning from, but building a copy of it isn't a good bet. Quebec is already taken by it. Elsewhere, there are either established English-language rivals or free team apps like Spond and SportEasy already widespread. The business charges only a few cents per person per month and requires negotiating association by association, with just one window per year.
Who it suits: developers who are already inside a local youth sports scene (former coaches, association volunteers, parent committee members), know the local federation's processes, and can reach association heads directly; small teams willing to sign clients slowly and do the math on an annual basis.
Who it doesn't suit: people who want to grow through paid ads or social media; people who expect clear revenue within a year; people who don't speak the local language and don't know anyone at an association.
How to do it: Don't copy the whole platform; copy the wedge: selection evaluation. Find a market and region where "teams are selected in one annual round, associations score with Excel, and there's no good tool in the local language"; for example, French-speaking hockey and soccer clubs in France, Belgium or Swiss French regions, or a province outside Quebec or a niche sport (which places are still open hasn't been verified one by one). First do scoring, rankings, automatic team sorting, and sending results to parents, and give it free to a few associations in year one. Once an association has imported its roster, add schedules and attendance; keep the public schedule pages login-free so search engines index them on their own.
How to get customers: Follow the same route as Retroaction: go through associations, not parents. Two to three months before the selection season (for northern-hemisphere hockey, that's 5 and June; for soccer, check the local calendar), approach the associations' technical directors and volunteers; post "get selection evaluations done in minutes" tutorial videos in the Facebook groups that local association heads actually read; demo at regional league meetings. Once one association is using it well, others in the same region tend to follow, and volunteers often move between several associations (inference). If you can connect to the local official registration system for roster imports, the barrier drops further.
When to get in: before the target region's selection season starts. Miss this season, and associations will have already run this year's camps with Excel or other tools, so you'll have to wait until next year.
What would signal you've got it wrong: ① If Retroaction's ranking after next August doesn't beat its November level this year (around 100k), growth for this kind of product has peaked; ② if Spordle's team app spreads across Quebec and associations start moving off Retroaction, then "sitting behind the official system as a supplement" is not a defensible position, and copying it elsewhere will hit the same problem; ③ conversely, if in the regions you target, associations will pay for evaluation separately and you sign a dozen or so in a year, the wedge is bigger than it looks and the rating should go up.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Spordle (registration ERP + Spordle Page + team app) Web Platform predates 2020; team app on iOS 2025-06-18 spordle.com Tranco 115k, CrUX Canada top 5 thousand; iOS 46 rating Spordle is Hockey Québec's official registration and league system; Retroaction handles evaluation, team sorting, practices and attendance inside associations, and can import rosters from Spordle/HCR. Spordle building its own team app is the biggest threat TeamSnap iOS Play 2012 Play 6.11M installs, #15 in Canada sports free chart; Tranco 20k English, organized around individual teams, with no association-level selection camp scoring or team sorting TeamLinkt Android 2017 Play 490k installs; Tranco 67k; CrUX Canada top 5 thousand Also free with ads and aimed at associations, but English and mostly western Canada; evaluation has to be connected separately RAMP InterActive Web RAMP Team App 2024-08 Play 83k installs; Tranco 123k Registration and league platform for English-speaking Canada SportsEngine / Spond / Heja Android 2013 / 2017 / 2016 Play 2.27M / 4.84M / 1.74M installs General team communication tool; doesn't understand Quebec association workflows and does no evaluation SkillShark / TeamGenius / Sports Evaluations / Evalu8 Web Several years each teamgenius.com Tranco 930k; skillshark.com CrUX Canada top 500k Selection evaluation only, in English, US pricing; Retroaction also runs the full-year operations beyond evaluation, and it's in French Amilia / Qidigo Web Many years (Quebec local) amilia.com Tranco 161k; qidigo.com CrUX Canada top 5 thousand Handles registration fees; does no evaluation and no internal association operations Publication Sports Web Many years (Quebec local) Tranco 156k Builds association websites that often link to Rétroaction, so they complement each other - Where users come from
- Verified Associations mandate it → parents get funneled in: SLQNE's FAQ says "L'horaire officiel est entièrement centralisé sur la plateforme Rétroaction"; AHMD and AHMSJ notices from 2026-27, a Ringuette Laval post, and CPVPAT's welcome guide all tell parents to use retroaction.ca. The directory lists about 160 hockey associations, 92 baseball, and 64 figure skating.
- Verified Seasonal (selection camps + season start): Tranco summer trough 693k → 104k; CrUX 6–July before 500k → September before 50k; comparable sites rose at the same time
- Verified Platform event: during COVID, Hockey Québec required attendance and Covid self-assessments: AHM Saint-Lambert and AHM Vaudreuil-Dorion used Rétroaction for Covid attendance and self-assessments. Athlete count went from 2020-08 (41,396) to 2022-08 100,000+ (Wayback).
- Verified SEO (public schedule pages get indexed): searching "retroaction.ca hockey mineur horaire" returns association Schedule pages as the top 10 results
- Verified Owned social and tutorials (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram): Facebook has a tutorial video on selection camp evaluations; the Instagram account retroaction_official posts 2026-09-18
- Inferred Paid ads: the metaads library doesn't track it and no campaigns turned up; the website pushes a "Demander une démo" sales path
Retroaction (retroaction.ca) research report
Channel: web (pool C1, matched to Google Play com.retroaction.RetroactionMobileApp). Research date 2026-11-07.
One line
Retroaction is a Quebec company of 2–10 people (legal entity Meliox inc., founded 2016) building French-language sports association management SaaS. It started with player scoring for selection camps (camp de sélection) and grew into one platform for team grouping, schedule publishing, attendance, and parent communication. The ranking rise around the recall is mainly the seasonal return of Quebec hockey and youth sports in the fall, not a new product taking off. Its real strength: once an association signs on, hundreds or thousands of families must check times and report attendance on its public schedule pages every week, which generates the high-frequency traffic.
1. Data: what's driving the rise
Tranco (traffic library rank_day): 2026-07-30 341,305 → 08-13 693,487 (summer trough) → 09-10 503,670 → 10-01 234,362 → 10-22 144,028 → 11-05 104,380. The card's "90 days ×4.5" uses the baseline 08-06 (465,093), which falls right in the summer dip.
CrUX(crux_domain):
| Month | Global | Canada | US |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05 | top 100k | top 5k | top 1M |
| 2026-06 | top 500k | top 5k | – |
| 2026-07 | top 500k | top 5k | top 1M |
| 2026-08 | top 100k | top 5k | top 500k |
| 2026-09 | top 50k | top 1k | top 500k |
It's clearly U-shaped: high in spring (May), dropping from 6 through July, rising again in late August with selection camps, and peaking after September's official season start. 2026-09 sits a full tier above 2026-05 (global 100k → 50k, Canada 5k → 1k), so beyond seasonality there may be some real growth. However, the library only has CrUX data from 2026-05 onward, so a year-over-year comparison isn't possible (unverified).
Comparable sites rose over the same period, so seasonality is the main driver (traffic library, from the worst point 2026-07-30 to now): spordle.com 188,239 → 115,420; gamesheetstats.com 247,807 → 145,626; publicationsports.com 260,458 → 156,003. retroaction.ca has the largest swing (693k → 104k) because its users almost only show up during the season and nearly disappear in summer.
Its scale is already meaningful in Canada: 2026-09 in Canada's CrUX data, retroaction.ca sits in the top 1k tier, while teamsnap.com, spordle.com, teamlinkt.com, and qidigo.com are in the top 5k tier over the same period, and amilia.com, rampinteractive.com, and publicationsports.com are in the top 50k tier. On Tranco it's now at 104k, already ahead of spordle.com (115k).
Traffic is mostly web; the app is a small share:
- Google Play
com.retroaction.RetroactionMobileApp: listed 2021-12-19, 60,782 installs (50,000+ tier), +242 over the last 7 days, best rank #67 on the Canada Sports free chart (googleplay library 2026-11-07). Ad-supported (ad_supported=True). - iOS
1599319114: developer Meliox inc., listed 2021-12-22; the Canada store has only 12 ratings, averaging 3.58 (iTunes lookup). - Parents mainly check schedules through the web at
retroaction.ca/Schedule/Index/<association>. These pages need no login and get indexed by Google (AHMD, AHMSJ, AHML, Beauport, HQNE, and dozens of other association schedule pages rank at the top of search results).
2. What it is and how it makes money
- The retroaction.ca site: import athletes (Excel), set up groups and teams, publish schedules, take attendance, invite evaluators to score, show live rankings, auto-"balance" teams by score, and share results with parents. Also includes chat, surveys, equipment checkout, recognition (méritas), and training plans.
- Pricing (retroaction.ca/Prix, 2026-11): free plan limited to 50 people; Bronze 0.50, Argent 0.60, and Or 0.75 CAD per athlete per month; ad removal is an extra 0.15 CAD per athlete per month. 2025-08 Wayback snapshots still show three tiers, Gratuit / Standard / Premium, billed per "association / network," with no public unit price, so the per-athlete public pricing was changed between 2025-26. One 2025-year pricing table has an item "Importation d'autres plateformes (HCR, Spordle, PTS)," showing it is built to sit on top of official registration systems.
- Homepage numbers: 100k+ athletes, 350k+ evaluations, 1.5M+ answers, 1,600+ evaluators. These figures haven't changed since 2022-08 (Wayback 2022/2023/2024/2025/2026), so they shouldn't be taken as current scale. The 2020-08 snapshot shows 41,396 athletes and 182,709 evaluations (Wayback 20200812).
- Company: LinkedIn says founded 2016, 2–10 people; Crunchbase lists the legal entity as Meliox inc.; developer Simon Ouellet (LinkedIn, Lévis, Université Laval). There is also a user forum at forum.retroaction.ca.
3. Why it took off
- Association-level distribution (B2B2C mandates): once an association adopts it, parents must come here for their child's groups, schedules, and attendance. Evidence:
- SLQNE FAQ: "L'horaire officiel est entièrement centralisé sur la plateforme Rétroaction," and parents are told to download the Rétroaction app (slqne.com/foire-aux-questions).
- AHMD's 2026-27 registration notice tells parents to check groups and schedules at retroaction.ca (hockeydrummondville.com); AHMSJ's "Camp mise en forme et Évaluations" notice links the schedule directly (ahmsj.ca).
- The Laval-area ringuette (ringuette) association's 2026-27 schedule links on Facebook/Instagram point to retroaction.ca; the Pointe-aux-Trembles speed skating club's 2026-09 welcome guide requires parents to use Rétroaction (cpvpat.org PDF).
- Number of entries in the association directory on the official site (2026-11-07 crawl, counted by links, approximate): hockey about 160, baseball about 92, figure skating about 64, soccer about 43, ringuette about 22, swimming about 18, basketball about 14, volleyball about 10, plus about 20 other sports.
- The hook is selection camp scoring, which comes up every year at this time: Quebec youth hockey holds selection camps (camp de sélection) from late August through September each year, and associations must organize evaluators to score, grade, and form teams. The official guide (Hockey Canada MHA Player Evaluation guide) only describes the paper process. Retroaction turns "Excel-compiled scores" into live rankings and automatic team balancing. It wins associations on this pain point first, and then the associations move the full-season schedule and attendance onto it too.
- COVID event: in 2020–21, Hockey Québec required attendance records and Covid-19 self-assessments, and Retroaction launched "Prise des présences version COVID 19." Evidence: AHM Saint-Lambert's Spordle page notice says "Compléter sa fiche d'auto-évaluation Covid-19 exigée par Hockey Québec" and uses Rétroaction to do it; AHM Vaudreuil-Dorion has a tutorial with the same name. Athlete count went from 2020-08 (41,396) to "100,000+" (2022-08, Wayback). The app was also listed on 2021-12. This step pushed it from an "evaluation tool" to a "daily operations platform for associations."
- Based in Quebec, French-first, very low price: charges 0.5–0.75 CAD per athlete per month, free for up to 50 people, with the free tier monetized through ads (the website has an ad-consent popup from 66 partners, and Play labels it as containing ads), and ad removal costs another 0.15 CAD per person per month. For volunteer-run associations, the barrier is very low.
- Complements the official registration systems rather than competing: Hockey Québec / Hockey Canada registration (HCR) and sign-ups run on Spordle (page.spordle.com, and the HCR parent registration guide at help.spordle.com). Many associations' websites are hosted on Spordle Page or Publication Sports, then link out to Rétroaction from there (page.spordle.com/fr/ahm-vaudreuil-dorion/p/retroaction; publicationsports.com/fr/ms/ahmvd/page/retroaction.html). Retroaction only handles internal association operations after registration.
4. Growth tactics (where users come from)
| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed |
|---|---|---|
| Associations mandate it → parents get funneled in | SLQNE's FAQ, AHMD/AHMSJ registration notices, a Ringuette Laval post, and CPVPAT's welcome guide all tell parents to use retroaction.ca or the app | Yes |
| Seasonal (selection camps + season start) | Tranco 08-13 693k → 11-05 104k; CrUX 6–July 500k tier, September 50k tier; comparable sites rose at the same time | Yes |
| Search / SEO (schedule pages get indexed) | Searching "retroaction.ca hockey mineur horaire" returns association Schedule pages as almost all of the top 10 results | Yes (passive indexing only) |
| Word of mouth between associations, volunteers moving across associations | Many Quebec associations in the directory; clusters of adoption in the same region (Laval, Rive-Sud, Québec City) | Inferred, unverified |
| Owned social (Facebook, YouTube tutorials, Instagram) | Facebook tutorial video "Voici comment préparer en quelques minutes les évaluations pour vos camps de sélection"; Instagram retroaction_official 2026-09-18 posts | Yes, but small volume |
| Paid ads | Our metaads library doesn't track it, and we found no ad records; the official site also says "Demander une démo", i.e. a sales-led demo flow | Not found (library doesn't cover it, can't rule it out) |
5. Competitors
| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from Retroaction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spordle (registration ERP + Spordle Page + Spordle team App) | Web / iOS / Android | Platform predates 2020; team App hit iOS 2025-06-18 | spordle.com Tranco 115k, CrUX top 5k in Canada; iOS rating 46 | Official registration and schedule system for Hockey Québec, handling sign-ups, fees and leagues. Retroaction handles internal association work: evaluations, team assignment, practices and attendance, and can import rosters from Spordle/HCR. Spordle's own team App is the biggest threat |
| TeamSnap | iOS / Android / web | Around 2009 (Play 2012) | Play 6.11M installs, #15 in the Canada sports free chart; teamsnap.com Tranco 20k | Mostly English, built around a single team, with no association-level selection camp scoring or team assignment |
| TeamLinkt | iOS / Android / web (Saskatoon) | 2017 | Play 490k installs; Tranco 67k; CrUX Canada top 5 thousand | Also free with ads, also serves associations and leagues, but mainly English and western Canada; evaluations need a separate tool (like Max Analytics) |
| RAMP InterActive | iOS / Android / web | RAMP Team App 2024-08 | Play 83k installs; Tranco 123k | Registration and league platform for English-speaking Canada |
| SportsEngine / Spond / Heja | iOS / Android | 2013 / 2017 / 2016 | Play 2.27M / 4.84M / 1.74M installs | A general team communication App that doesn't understand Quebec association workflows, and its French is weak |
| SkillShark, TeamGenius, Sports Evaluations, Evalu8 | Web / App | Several years each | teamgenius.com Tranco 930k, CrUX top 50k in Canada; skillshark.com top 500k in Canada | Selection evaluation only, in English, US pricing; Retroaction also runs the full-year operations beyond evaluation, and it's in French |
| Amilia, Qidigo | Web | Many years (Quebec local) | amilia.com Tranco 161k; qidigo.com CrUX Canada top 5 thousand | Handle sign-up and payments for municipalities and clubs, but don't do evaluations or internal association operations |
| Publication Sports | Web | Many years (Quebec local) | Tranco 156k | Builds association websites that often link to Rétroaction, so they complement each other |
| GameSheet | Web / App | – | Tranco 146k; GameSheet Teams Play 12k | Electronic scoresheets and stats, complementary |
6. Differentiation
- French-language, Quebec-local, association-level: very few products meet all three while also covering the full chain from evaluation to team assignment to the season's schedule and attendance. Competitors in English Canada and the US either don't speak French or only handle one segment.
- Enter through selection evaluations: evaluations are a once-a-year task every association must run, and the most painful part of Excel. Once you own that step, migrating schedules and attendance is cheap, and schedules are what bring high-frequency traffic.
- Price and ads in parallel: free and low-cost tiers keep the barrier at zero, while ads cover the bill. That suits volunteer-run, budget-tight associations.
- Is this why it took off? Yes. But the takeoff happened in 2020–22, when pandemic-era attendance requirements and selection camp scoring established it in the Quebec market. The autumn 2026 climb is an annual seasonal rebound, possibly with some year-over-year growth on top (September CrUX one tier above May), but not a new inflection point.
7. How many people have seen it
- No media coverage, no discussion on X (x-radar found 0 results for "retroaction.ca" over 90 days), no public revenue, not listed on TrustMRR, and no funding reports (Crunchbase has basic info only).
- Its recognition is limited to Quebec sports associations and parents, a "word of mouth within a niche" situation. Almost nobody outside the circle knows it.
- Copycats: none found. The real threat is Spordle moving down into team Apps (live since 2025-06), not a new imitator.
8. What others can learn
- Target verticals where organizations force adoption: sell to associations and schools, and their members (parents) become users by mandate. Each association signed brings hundreds of high-frequency users, and web traffic and ad monetization follow.
- Use a once-a-year but painful step as the wedge (selection evaluations), then expand to high-frequency steps across the year (schedules, attendance).
- Sit behind the official registration system as a complement (importing rosters from HCR/Spordle), rather than fighting the governing body's designated platform head-on.
- Localize for small languages and regions, which can be copied to other provinces or countries: French-speaking areas outside Quebec and Ontario, and club systems in France and Belgium, using local languages and local federation workflows.
- Public schedule pages that need no login and can be indexed; this traffic is a growth channel in itself.
9. Uncertain
- Whether there was real year-over-year growth: the library has no Tranco or CrUX data for autumn 2025, so only 2026-09 and 2026-05 can be compared.
- Paid share, revenue, and ad revenue split: unknown. The scale figures on the homepage haven't been updated since 2022.
- Whether there is paid acquisition: the metaads library doesn't track it, so it can't be ruled out.
- How much Spordle's team App, once widely adopted, would hit its schedule and attendance business.
Sources
- Our libraries: traffic (rank_day, crux_domain, product_domain, 2026-11-05/07), googleplay (app_profile, app_day, 2026-11-07), appstore (app_profile), metaads (no records), x-radar (0 records).
- Official site: www.retroaction.ca/, /Prix, /Associations, /Hockey and other sports directory pages; Wayback snapshots 2020-08-12, 2022-08-14, 2023-10-04, 2024-09-11, 2025-08-29, 2026-07-12 (homepage), 2025-08-01, 2026-07-12 (/Prix).
- iTunes lookup id 1599319114 (Retroaction, Meliox inc.), 6741865117 (Spordle, 2025-06-18).
- www.slqne.com/foire-aux-questions; www.hockeydrummondville.com/fr/publication/nouvelle/inscript…; www.ahmsj.ca/fr/publication/nouvelle/camp_mise_en_forme-3.ht…; cpvpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/feuillet-de-bienvenue-…; Ringuette Laval Facebook/Instagram posts; page.spordle.com/ahm-saint-lambert/news/1f168d1f-b616-6b28-b…; page.spordle.com/fr/ahm-vaudreuil-dorion/p/retroaction.
- www.linkedin.com/company/retroaction-ca (founded 2016, 2–10 employees); www.crunchbase.com/organization/retroaction-ca (Meliox inc.).