Lucky charms or not? It depends on how you look at them.

Craig Levra, chief executive of Sport Chalet Inc., was determined to see his company through what he predicted would be the hard times ahead. So in April 2008, he called together department heads, district managers, sales teams and corporate employees of the La Canada-based specialty sporting goods retailer to give them something special.

Levra, 50, distributed poker chips to remind his employees that everyone had to go “all in.”

Survival, he remembers telling them, “is going to take an all-in on everyone’s part.”

Since then, Sport Chalet recorded a 7.5 percent decline in sales. But it hasn’t closed any of its 55 stores in four states.

“Despite our loss, we’ve been able to reposition the company in this environment,” Levra said last week. “And we’re still here.”

Not everybody, though: Last fall, the company laid off employees to save $18 million in salaries.

“I’m sure most of them had those poker chips,” Levra lamented.