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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.

World’s Largest Hockey Stick and Puck In Need of Repair

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:57:12 +0000

The World’s Largest Hockey Stick and Puck (as recognized by the Guinness Book of World’s Records) are in dire need of repair.

Snippet from the article…

Built in 1985, the 205-foot hockey stick is built from Douglas fir beams reinforced with steel, and weighs in at a staggering 61,000 pounds (28,118 kgs).

The puck, well, it’s made out of plywood and tar.

Now, nearly 25 years after The Stick was first commissioned by the Government of Canada as part of the Expo ‘86 World’s Fair Exposition in Vancouver, the huge hockey homage is showing its age.

The full story can be found here.

Easton Hockey Factory – Building a Hockey Stick

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:18:14 +0000

Heidi Androl visits the Easton Hockey Factory to help build Ryan Getzlaf’s next hockey stick.
Video: 3:25 Minutes from NHL.TV

If you liked that video, check out these others on How Hockey Sticks Are Made:
Composite Hockey Sticks: How Its Made [Video]

Wood Hockey Sticks: How Its Made [video]

World’s Oldest Hockey Sticks

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:40:28 +0000

How old are the world’s oldest hockey sticks? A recent article in The Nova Scotian has an interesting write up on a few of the world’s oldest hockey sticks. The oldest sticks are thought to have been made in the mid-1800s. The main story outlines the details of a specific stick that collector Mark Presley has been documenting.

Here is the sidebar of the story lists a few of the most hyped historical hockey sticks…

HOCKEY STICK SWEEPSTAKES

In the past decade, since record-breaking home run baseballs drew hundred thousand dollar bids in the United States, the hockey memorabilia market has been humming with discoveries of old sticks in Ontario and Quebec:
FIRST: The so-called World’s Oldest Hockey Stick, offered by Gordon Sharpe, 42, of Gore’s Landing, Ont., was allegedly carved by a distant relative in the 1850s. The Rutherford Stick, proclaimed on a website as “the single most important piece of hockey memorabilia in existence,” was privately appraised at $4.5 million US, reportedly sold on EBay for $2.2 million, but rests unclaimed today at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

SECOND: A stick billed as the World’s Oldest Manufactured Hockey Stick was described by its owner, Mark O’Connell, 50, of Beaverton, Ont., as “hockey’s holy grail.” Acquired in a real estate deal and often used by his son to play road hockey, the stick is stamped “Ditson” an American sporting goods dealer. O’Connell placed a reserve bid of $1-million US on the 42-inch long, planed cudgel, but it remains unsold today.

THIRD: At Quebec City in May, Bobby Rouillard, 35, displayed a stick he bought for $3,000 from a Victoriaville, Que., collector, who hinted it might have originated with aboriginals in Nova Scotia. The son of a Quebec City antique dealer, Rouillard had the stick radiocarbon dated at a U.S. laboratory. The verdict: The wood was cherry or yellow birch, dated to the 1600s, centuries before stick-ball games were formalized. No sale has been reported.

You can find the complete story at The Nova Scotian web site.

Update: The original article is no longer being served up from the Nova Scotian web site. Here is a copy of Google’s cached version of the main article text…

WHY WOULD a Nova Scotia resident pack a rifle case, drive 1,300 kilometres to central Canada and never let it out of his sight? A hunting trip? No-o-o. A stick-up? Well, sort of, but in a new sense of the word. Inside the silver-trimmed case was a rare piece of wood with oval handle and thick, curved blade that hung for years on the wall of a North Sydney barbershop.

Mark Presley, a passionate hockey enthusiast and collector from Berwick, admired it for years.

After buying it, he became aware of reports of so-called million-dollar sticks discovered in Ontario and later in Quebec.

Then the former Annapolis Valley antique store owner set out on an odyssey that took him through personal interviews and archival files that produced an impeccable provenance that would delight any Antiques Road Show consultant.

Rather than put a monetary value on the artifact, the 41-year-old youth worker tagged it as “a national treasure” and headed west to try and fit it into hockey’s historical chronology.

He contacted colleagues in the Society for International Hockey Research, formed in 1991 at Kingston, Ont., one of hockey’s cradles, who arranged a mini “stick summit.”

On the mahogany boardroom table of the International Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum, Presley laid out the one-piece stick — 1.05 metres tip to toe, .86 metres tip to heel and 33 cm along the blade, and weight: .77 kilos.

It was compared with several other old sticks: one 1888 Queen’s University stick, a field hockey variety that originated in Nova Scotia; and with pictures of an 1881 McGill University stick.

Also in the study were two long-handled, short-bladed, battle-scarred shinnies owned by fellow collector David Kelterborn of Newmarket, Ont. All sticks were inspected, traced, measured, photographed and admired.

Presley gathered information that clearly showed the stick was older than the first organized Canadian game, played indoors at Montreal in 1875. One of the stick’s previous owners, Charles Moffatt, 92, he said, recalled his father, Warren C. Moffatt and his grandfather, Thomas A. Moffatt, had used the stick to play hockey on nearby Pottle’s Lake in the mid-1800s.

He then had the stick examined by an expert for clues on age and origin. Antique tool historian and collector Kevin Wood of Kentville noted “general wear, honest with consistent patina” and defined it as hand hewn and shaped from the root of a maple. All elements, he suggested, were consistent with the period 1800-1850 in Cape Breton.

Carved initials WM, visible in the blade, Presley said, were executed before two layers of oxblood and brown milk paint were added. The initials prompted further research in the lineage of the Moffatts, a Loyalist family with pioneer shipbuilding roots. It led to the shipbuilder’s son, W.M. (Dilly) Moffatt, born in 1829 and suggested a stick crafted between about 1837 and 1841. The Cape Breton stick helps confirm written evidence of early 19th century stick-ball activities — rickets and hurley — in Nova Scotia and fits the thesis of an east-west spread of Canadian ice games.

Ed Grenda, the society’s honorary president, who has served as TV consultant for historic hockey re-enactments with replica sticks, said the summit was a scholar’s delight.

“By examining the shapes and composition of the ancient sticks, historians and collectors were able to develop a number of constructive perspectives on the early stages of hockey’s evolution. All too often, an examination of old sticks regresses to the potential market value if they are sold. This summit studiously avoided this tack.”

Are such sticks just conversation pieces or are they worth more than a mansion? A million-dollar bid for an old hockey stick seems ludicrous, even in an age when NHL players are paid millions to wield them.

What any old stick is worth is anyone’s guess. Toronto’s John Sewell, once an antiques columnist, said it is difficult to assess the value of hockey sticks that are not autographed by someone famous.

“It’s a free-for-all today,” said Presley.

It’s almost impossible to set a figure for market or even museum insurance purposes, particularly when most of the recent discoveries come with little or no conclusive documentation.

That’s where Mark Presley’s stick is head and shoulders above other well-hyped entries lacking authentic lineage.

Presley has done his homework. By revealing the artifact’s detailed provenance and making it available for study, he has set a new standard that defines broad criteria for adjudicating such objects.

Bill Fitsell is historian for the International Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum, founding president of SIHR and author of How Hockey Happened.

Hockey Gloves: How Its Made [video]

admin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:51:26 +0000

Hockey gloves are made up of about 30 different parts.

The covering material is called the outer shell. It can be made of genuine leather or synthetic leather. There is even a new synthetic material that is called “carbon” that is tear proof even when slashed by sharp skate blades.

High density foam is very hard and is used in places that require maximum protection. Low density foam is used in other areas to line the glove. It provides good protection while still being flexible.

The palm is the most important part of the glove. It endures the most wear and tear. It is designed to be as tough as possible while still being thin enough to allow the hockey player a great feel of the hockey stick. The palm can be made of high end synthetic suede, synthetic leather or genuine leather. The advantage of real leather is that it can be treated with an anti-bacterial product that combats odor caused by the hand sweating in the glove.

Good stuff! 5 minute video.

Hockey Rinks: How Its Made [video]

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:42:51 +0000

Anybody for some delicious layer cake?

Each layer is about 2 mm (.08 inches) think and freezes in seconds after application. It takes about 8 minutes to apply one layer across the entire rink.

The Hockey Rink Recipe:

2 layers of ice
3 layers of white paint (special paint that is non-toxic, biodegradable and formulated to stick to ice)
Now comes the hockey markings, hand painted
- Red lines, Blue line, Goal lines
- Face-off circles then the goal crease at each net
- Finally the logos and a quick layer to seal the paint with a garden hose
Last comes a slow flooding to add the final 3 cm (1.2 inches) of ice for a total thickness of about 4 cm (1.6 inches).

Now that is a great use of 300 bath tubs full of water!

5 minute video

Here is bonus video #1 that show how a basketball court gets transformed into an Ice hockey rink in 1 hour and 20 minutes! Video length is 46 seconds.

Bonus video #2 shows a rodeo getting turned in to an ice rink. Video length is 2 and a half minutes.

Interesting Hockey Stick Patents

admin — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:49:03 +0000

While doing a search for hockey stick info recently, I came across some links to sites that list US patents. I found some pretty interesting patents and thought I would share some of what I found.

There are multiple sites that have patent listing and the one I used was www.freepatentsonline.com. You can do a search and see the basic patent info for each patent without having an account. If you want to see the diagrams that are associated with each patent, you need to create a free account and log in.

Here are a few of the more interesting patents that I came across…

Here is the oldest hockey stick patent from 1926 that describes methods of mating a wooden stick shaft to the blade. Patent # 1601116

Who would like to have a hockey stick shaft with adjustable stiffness and flex? Patent # 6257997. July, 2001

How about a shield that attaches to your hockey stick to block your view of the puck? Patent # 6174248. January, 2001

You have seen oval and elliptical shafts, how about a triangular shaft? Patent # 6267697. July, 2001
The first diagram shows the triangular section of the shaft and this is the shape for the majority of the shaft. From the patent description it looks like the shaft transitions to a standard rectangular shape at the handle (second diagram) and where the blade mates to the shaft.

I am sure there are more goodies hiding in the patent database. If you find some really cool ones, please drop me a note!

Sports game turns Wii Remote into hockey stick

admin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:53:11 +0000

Canadian video game developer Big Blue Bubble has announced it is developing a Wii hockey game that will allow players to use the Wii Remote as a hockey stick. The original article where I found this is located here… http://videogamemedia.com/articles/news/1268 Related posts:Flarrow Hockey Back As DHM SportsFast Company Names NHL.Com As One Of Their Top 10 [...] Related posts:

Hockey Pucks: How Its Made [video]

admin — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:12:16 +0000

Here is a 5 minute video about how ice hockey pucks are made.

Did you know…

that the earliest ice hockey pucks were made of wood?
that there are 11 different ingredients that go into making hockey pucks?

It is amazing to see how much of the manufacturing process is still done by hand.

Pretty cool video on ice hockey pucks.

Wood Hockey Sticks: How Its Made [video]

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:10:08 +0000

Here is a 5 and a half minute video on how modern wood ice hockey sticks are made.

Ice Hockey Stick Shafts are made of poplar & birch wood with carbon reinforced fiberglass

Especially cool is to see the 6,000 unique blade patterns from all the hockey greats.

It looks like this was filmed in the Sherwood plant. The video states that they make 40,000 ice hockey sticks per week for a total of 1,600,000 ice hockey sticks per year. Wow!