Welcome to the Hockey Stick Expert site!
Hockey sticks are a critical piece of your equipment and having the right tool for the job can make all the difference in the world. Hockey Stick Expert is here to help find the best ice hockey sticks or roller hockey sticks for you and take your game to the next level. Topics we hope to cover include terms (like hockey stick flex, hockey stick length, hockey stick lie) and how-tos (Right vs. Left handed Hockey Sticks, taping a hockey stick, cutting a hockey stick to length) and more.
Hockey Stick topics and stick models we cover include:
- Ice Hockey Sticks
- Roller Hockey Sticks
- Street Hockey Sticks
- Wood Hockey Sticks
- Composite Hockey Sticks
- Easton Hockey Sticks
- Sherwood
- CCM and Mission
- TPS
- Goalie Hockey Sticks (would love find somebody to share their expertise here)
- Field Hockey Sticks
If you would like to see new information or have other suggestions (like a new term for our Hockey Stick Dictionary), please send us an email at “tips AT hockeystickexpert.com” or use the form on the Contact page.
Here’s to your continued hockey success!
- the Hockey Stick Expert team
Welcome!
Counting Rings – The World’s Oldest Hockey Stick
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.
Filed Under Hockey Stick News
The Glorious 1 Piece Composite Hockey Stick
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?
Filed Under General Hockey Stick Info
Crosby Enters The Season With A 100% Composite Hockey Stick
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.
Filed Under Hockey Stick News
Sidney Crosby Testing New Hockey Stick
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.
Filed Under General Hockey Stick Info, Hockey Stick News
Wrist Shots: Researching The Secrets
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.
Filed Under Hockey Stick Shooting
1924 Olympic Hockey Stick Of the Toronto Granites
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.
Filed Under Hockey Stick News
Hockey Sticks – Easton Hockey – Carbon Nanotube Research
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.
Filed Under Easton Hockey, Hockey Stick Fun, Hockey Stick News