Hockey Stick Expert

Counting Rings – The World’s Oldest Hockey Stick

admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:07:43 +0000

There has been some great data collected and analyzed regarding the age of “The Moffat Stick” that is claimed to be the oldest hockey stick in the world. Well, that claim definitely got stronger with the new the analysis that was recently conducted by Mount Allison University dendrochronologist (fancy name for a tree scientist) Colin Laroque.

Mark Presley with the Moffat Hockey Stick

The data analyzed points to a likely age of 170 years old for the stick. More specifically the data indicates the maple tree used to create the stick was cut down between 1828 and 1838. This date range happens to align dead on with the verbal history of the stick that states the hockey stick was made for W.M. (Dilly) Moffatt, born in 1829.

Moffatt Hockey Stick

The first article I picked up this information on can be found here at the Vancouver Sun.

The Glorious 1 Piece Composite Hockey Stick

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:53:17 +0000

TSN writer Wayne Karl wrote a GREAT article about the state of the composite hockey stick in the NHL today and where it has come from over the last 10 years. It is not often that you get a top professional writing and entire article about ice hockey sticks so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Highlights from “The One-Piece Composite Stick” article include…

Ten years later, the one-piece composite hockey stick is anything but outlawed – it has been embraced as the weapon of choice by almost all NHL players, and is one of the most significant success stories in the hockey business in decades.

..and…

“It gives a better release, a harder shot, better everything,” Gomez said in The Hockey News 2001-02 Yearbook. “What else can you ask for?

NHL players were soon asking for it in a hurry, once they could see the 460-gram stick could help them shoot quicker, harder and more accurately. No more fussing with inserting a wood or graphite blade into a composite or aluminum shaft, or fumbling with heavier wood sticks. The Synergy gave them light weight, power, quickness and consistency, every time.

…and…

Even Ottawa Senators forward Jason Spezza, one of the last wood stick holdouts, as late as to the beginning of the 2009-10 season, has seen the light.

“I’m pretty set with what I’ve got right now (a Reebok one-piece),” he says. “I feel really comfortable with my stick, so I think I’m pretty much done with wood. I was one of the few remaining guys. Nobody really wants to make wood sticks any more because there’s no market for them. Everyone’s buying one-pieces.”

The article also cites stats about how the average goals per game has remained a pretty consistent 5.6 in the just before and since era of the one-piece composite sticks.

There is a ton more great info in the original article. You can read it in its entirety here.

With better performance, dropping prices and a focus on improving durability from the manufacturers, how long will you still be able to buy wood hockey sticks?

Crosby Enters The Season With A 100% Composite Hockey Stick

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:57:28 +0000

Across the AP wire on the even of the Penguin’s opening game of the 2009-2010 comes this article about Sidney Crosby sticking with the composite stick that he has been practicing with during the off-season and pre-season. He still has a stock pile of wooden hockey sticks in case this experiment doesn’t work out, but he looks pretty committed to going 100% composite.

Your can read the full article here.

Sidney Crosby Testing New Hockey Stick

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:53:36 +0000

photo by: Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

The Penguin’s Sidney Crosby is trying out a new composite stick. He has been using a two piece hockey stick with a wood blade. The new hockey stick that he is trying out is a one piece composite hockey stick. The article states that wooden hockey stick shafts and blades are very rare in the NHL theses days as players look to gain more velocity with the new composite materials.

The full story is available at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette here.

Wrist Shots: Researching The Secrets

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:09:20 +0000

Dan Peterson posted a nice article about research that is being conducted at McGill University into the exact mechanics that go into a perfect wrist shot. The objective of the research really is to understand the exact techniques and factors that make up a more accurate shot.

The article does mention one difference between pros and novices when it comes to shooting at the upper corners. The difference is that the pros pull the puck in closer to their body prior to the shot to get better control. The research is ongoing and they hope to achieve results that will translate into specific instructions to improve the wrist shots of every hockey player.

You can read all of the article at the Live Science site here.

1924 Olympic Hockey Stick Of the Toronto Granites

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:10:25 +0000

1924 Olympic Ice Hockey Stick

A classic collectible ice hockey stick is starting to surface, one that any collector would be proud to have in their collection. The stick is a team autographed wood hockey stick from the 1924 Olympic Gold medal winning team of the Toronto Granites.

It looks like its current owner, Jeanne Dodwell, might be putting it up for auction sometime between now on the Vancouver winter Olympics in 2010. The stick looks to be quite a treasure and it will surely find many potential buyers if it does go to auction.

The original story from TheStarcan be found here.

Hockey Sticks – Easton Hockey – Carbon Nanotube Research

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:04:54 +0000

3D Carbon Nanotube Structure from Wikipedia

The Easton Corp recently gave a $2 million dollar gift to the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science to provide for advanced research into carbon nanotubes. Easton Sports (look here for more HSE info on Easton Hockey) has been a leader in using advanced technologies and materials in manufacturing sports equipment for many years. This is another way that they are hoping to get a jump on a new era of better equipment for hockey and their many other sports lines.

Carbon nanotubes are layers of graphite that are built up from the level of single atoms. They have amazing strength for their weight and this allows them to be used to design even more advanced ice hockey sticks and other sports equipment. Are you interested in a hockey stick that weights significantly less than today’s lightest models but will be even more durable? Sign me up!

The original article from UCLA News can be found here.

Ice Hockey Stick Composite Technology

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:30:07 +0000

I found this blurb on some recent advances in composite technology as applied to building a true one piece composite hockey stick. You can follow this link to find more of our articles on composite hockey sticks.

Key snippets from the article include:

The stick uses a third generation toughened high-end resin system, Araldite NanoTech Composite new RTM system, to meet the most stringent demands of ice hockey players.

… and …

The Busch ice hockey stick is made of carbon and glass braids around a synthetic foam core which provide the stiffness needed to release maximum energy. This assembly is then inserted in a mould with an injection point at one end and an outlet point at the other end. Araldite NanoTech Composite is injected into the mould to impregnate the braids. This technology has been patented by Busch to produce the only true one-piece composite hockey stick with continuous fibre strengthening and no joints.

The article also state that the Swiss National Hockey team used pre-released versions of these 1 piece composite hockey sticks during the 2008 World Championships in Canada and that the stick were well regarded.

The original article can be found here.

Easton Hockey Sticks Dominate The NHL

admin — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:27:43 +0000

Easton Hockey Sticks

Easton Hockey

Here are some very interesting statistics from a PR piece off of Easton’s cooperate web site.

As of the close of the NHL regular season, Easton posted a record 371 players in a Easton Composite stick! That amounts to nearly 52% of the world’s best players scoring game winning goals with world’s best composite stick. Think about that! That is more players choosing Easton than ALL other companies COMBINED! More than Bauer, More than Warrior, More than Rbk, More than EVERYBODY! Why would you step on the ice with anything else?

The “article” has a few more stats regarding the % goals scored with Easton hockey sticks.

You can find the original article here.

Slapshot Fundamentals – Getting The Most From Your Hockey Stick

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:47:41 +0000

There is a REALLY nice post that I just came across at the site Video Analysis Of Sport. The article breaks down the fundamentals of a slapshot.

Slapshot Warrior Hockey

The article is a visual analysis of 2 different shooters and in does a bit of “compare and contrast” analysis of each of there shots. There are a couple of shot video and photos that were supplied by Warrior hockey.

Key points covered in the article include:
Head Position and Eye Direction
The “Anchor” (back leg)
The Follow Through

Check out the full article at slapshot video analysis.