Bochenski selling Women's Cloths.

I found this story on the Cardinal's WCHA Blog and when I first read the story I thought you have to be kidding. Former Fighting Sioux Brandon "Bucks" Bochenski who now is a member of the rough and tumble Boston Bruin's owns a store for high end women's clothing with his fiancé Jen. Yeah, OK... I got to thinking why not? Good luck to Bochenski and his wife on their business venture.

Bochenski is owner of women’s clothing boutique.

Brandon, who will be tying-the-knot early this month to Jen, his fiancé, has had his hands full with wedding planning. And the young winger is still boarding flights back to the Hub of Hockey to run children’s street hockey clinics, and making calls to season ticket holders. He even appeared as a special guest at the Bruins recent Launch Party.

And when Brandon is back home in the suburb of Woodbury, Minnesota - a short ride from Minneapolis and St. Paul - this big-bad Bruin is the proud owner of Elodie (pronounced: el-o-DEE), a designer women’s clothing boutique.

Yes you read that correctly.

“It was originally Jen’s idea, obviously, to do designer women’s fashion,” Bochenski chuckled.

However, Jen didn’t have to twist Brandon’s arm to get him in on the deal. Bockenski, who studied business while playing hockey at the University of North Dakota, has always wanted to start a company of his own.

“I always enjoyed business in school," said Bo. "I thought that being an entrepreneur and starting something from scratch like this would be fun.

"I obviously had other envisions of what the company would be (laughs), but I get the same basic structure here, so it’s fun.”

The future Mr. and Mrs. Bochenski are no slouches when it comes to running a business either; they both did their homework before starting up. They knew the competition they would get from other popular female clothing stores in the area would be stiff, so they intentionally tailored their shop to high-end designer fashion - a true niche market -- just like you learn about in Intro to Business.

Brandon also understood the importance of both timing and location.

The 1,200 square foot shop only took a month to really take-off, as Brandon and Jen officially opened the door in mid-November of 2006 - just in time for the holiday rush. And now with the summer and warmer weather, Elodie is reaping the benefit of its location in an outdoor mall (similar to those prominent to Florida, Phoenix, and California).

The name on the other hand, wasn’t as strategically picked.

“Well, Jen originally wanted a name that had meaning, but it ended up with no meaning,” explained Brandon. “It just sounds nice and memorable. She found the word on the internet actually.

"It is a French name, and we figured it kind of went along with that high-end, New York style of the store.

"So it sounded fancy and it wasn’t taken,” joked Brandon.