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!
New hockey stick test machine could help reduce breakage
Excerpts form the original article…
A revolutionary new ice hockey stick test machine looks primed and ready to shoot down its competition.
It just needs to be built.
Unsatisfied with the current principal method used to test stick durability, University of Waterloo engineering prof John McPhee set out to design a new system.
and ..
McPhee believes the answer will lie in testing the sticks dynamically. In other words, measuring the effects acting on the stick from the time it makes contact with the ice to when the puck leaves the blade.
Inspired by his work as a technical advisor for Golf Digest magazine, where computer-controlled robots were used to test out new golf clubs and balls, McPhee designed a robot based upon the same idea: a machine that repeats the exact same shot over and over again.
To make this happen, McPhee realized he had to overcome one major design obstacle.
“You need arms to attach to the stick at two different locations,” said McPhee. “Furthermore, the hockey stick has to be able to bend between those two places.”
This Article was originally published in the The Varsity Magazine and the full article can be found here
Filed Under General Hockey Stick Info, Hockey Stick News, Ice Hockey Shafts
Hockey Sticks of the San Jose Sharks
I was watching a San Jose Sharks game this weekend and they had a short segment about the Sharks Ice Hockey Sticks with their assistant equipment manager Rick Bronwell.
The hockey stick numbers:
- Zero wood hockey sticks
- 100% Composite sticks
- 2 players use two piece sticks (Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau)
- Everybody else uses 1 piece hockey sticks
The Sharks usually bring 3-4 spare sticks to home games for each player but they have many more just 5 minutes away if needed.
Filed Under Hockey Stick News
Most likely “World’s Oldest Hockey Stick”
There is a nice article from the Nanaimo Daily News on Mark Presley’s Hockey Stick. The experts seem to be lining up behind this stick as the most authentic (so far) hockey stick to claim the title of the oldest. The hunt for the hockey stick national treasure continues…
Mark Presley with his Vintage Hockey Stick
Here are some interesting snippets from the article…
New Brunswick scientists are preparing to conduct tests on the age of what appears to be the world’s oldest known hockey stick – a hand-hewn, maple-root specimen from Cape Breton that historians of Canada’s favourite sport are endorsing as the most genuine candidate yet to be considered a “national treasure.”
While other contenders have recently been offered for sale on eBay, experts say the object owned by Nova Scotia youth worker Mark Presley has the composition, design and provenance of an authentic, early 19th-century shinny stick – a relic from the era when hockey was evolving from a variety of stick-and-ball skating games throughout Eastern Canada.
…and…
Experts from the Toronto-based Society for International Hockey Research (SIHR)examined Presley’s stick last fall and declared it the best example yet of a mid-1800s hockey stick.
Other old sticks with more questionable qualities and murkier pedigrees have come up for sale recently with huge asking prices.
Earlier this month, Quebec resident Bobby Rouillard grabbed national headlines after offering for sale on eBay – at $1 million US – a vintage stick he claimed could be hundreds of years old.
Experts, including those at the SIHR, are skeptical, suggesting the stick looks to be closer to 100 years old.
…and…
In a recent article about the discovery, Fitsell stated: “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.”
Noting that Presley’s stick is “head and shoulders above other well-hyped entries” in the antique hockey-stick sweepstakes, Fitsell added that: “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.”
Presley, a 41-year-old history buff from Berwick, N.S., acquired the stick last March after it had been displayed for about 30 years on the wall of a barbershop in North Sydney, N.S.
He carefully traced the stick’s origins to the Moffatt family, which had a homestead on the shores of nearby Pottle’s Lake.
Oral and written records describing shinny contests on the lake in the mid-1800s – with Moffatt family members among the skaters – have strengthened the case for the stick’s authenticity.
You can find the full article here.
Filed Under Hockey Stick News
Hockey the Cause of Most Canadian Baseball Players Batting Left Handed?
Here is a fun story about the majority of Canadian Baseball player batting left handed due to playing hockey left handed as they grew up.
Why do so many Canadian baseball players bat left-handed? Jason Bay has a theory: When first handed a hockey stick, the typical Canadian kid grabs the end with his right hand.
…
“I don’t know the scientific approach to it,” Bay said Wednesday, “but that was the Baseball Canada consensus in the locker room — that it had everything to do with the hockey stick. Everything. I think it boiled down to being right-hand dominant and using that on the top of your stick as your control hand. That’s the best that we could come up with.”
…
According to various Internet entries, about two-thirds of NHL players shoot left-handed. Roughly 90% of the general population is right-handed.
The full story can be found here (NOTE: original link no longer active).
Filed Under General Hockey Stick Info
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Hockey Stick Basics
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