Much has been made of turning swords into plow sheers, but Jill Pull of Fountain Valley, California, has started a unique charity that turns broken hockey sticks into walking canes for disabled vets. Pull, who has had leg problems his whole adult life, produces the canes from used hockey sticks, many of which come from the Anaheim Ducks, and his own personal cane is from a stick that had once been used by Bobby Ryan.
The idea to reuse what would have otherwise ended up in the trash came to Pull while he was at a Ducks game in the spring of 2010, and saw that there were many broken hockey sticks by the bench. The sticks were made of the same carbon fiber material as Pull’s cane, and from there he realized that he could use the shaft of the sticks to make canes.
But so far the business hasn’t taken off as he hoped. With a few prototypes under his wing, Pull contacted the NHL – but found himself on thin ice due to licensing restrictions and regulations. While it couldn’t be a for profit business, Pull was not to be deterred and instead started a charity. With this Canes 4 Vets was born. The goal (no pun intended) is to give canes to those injured serving our country.
Today most of the sticks come from private donors,where the shaft of the old stick becomes the shaft of the new cane, complete with whatever tape job the owner originally may have originally applied. This makes a unique cane with no two exactly alike. Pull continues to reach out to the NHL, but in the meantime he’s continuing to help get the canes to those in need, especially veterans returning home.
Canes 4 Vets Official Website
[Via The Orange County Register: Ducks fan uses broken sticks to help vets]
With football you can only be protected if the equipment is doing its job, and for this reason Riddell, the official helmet of the National Football League, is calling for an in-season time out to make sure that coaches, players and parents are properly inspecting the equipment including helmets and shoulder pads.
The SIA Snow Show is still more than two months away, and winter is still a month off itself, but already the annual industry trade event is poised to sell out. Predictions of a bad winter is good news for the snow sports industry, which expects to draw more than 19,000 attendees including snow sport suppliers, retailers, reps, athletes and professionals from around the world to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver for the January 26-29 event.
During the winter months it’s best to dress in layers to keep in the heat, but did you know that a base layer can also help keep you cool? Firefighters often wear a base layer of fire retardant clothing below all of their other gear to keep from burning up and athletes sometimes wear a base layer to help wick away sweat. Wickers, based in New York, manufactures undergarments for all walks of life. From rock climbers to the military; kids to women experiencing menopause; and motorcyclists to hikers – Wickers makes an undergarment for literally anyone, and for any time of year. Best of all the garments are made in America.
Today’s Android smartphones pack larger-than-average screens in increasingly thinner bodies, and while that may sound great on paper, in the real world it can become a recipe for disaster, especially when you take your favorite phone on a run or bike ride with you. To protect your handset from a premature death on the sidewalk, Ballistic has created a bulletproof case for two of the hottest Android phones on the market today – the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Samsung Galaxy Epic 4G Touch. The new Ballistic Shell Gell Series Case offers three layers of protection for these phones ensuring that no harm comes to your mobile device.
There seems to be specific shoes for just about every sport under the sun, for use on the field, on a bike and of course on the greens – the latter being golf shoes. Now not to bemoan those who like the Carrier Bradshaw approach to shoe shopping/collecting, but are all these shoes all really necessary? For those who like to play golf on occasion but don’t see the need for another pair of shoes, there is a solution, the Quick Spikes, which are being billed as “the temporary golf spike solution.”
Many devices track your every move, watch your every step and basically can monitor what you do while you’re on the road to better fitness. But eButton could take it to the next level. Currently it is a project being developed at the University of Pittsburgh, but the concept here is to track what you do and then report to a personal trailer or other fitness coach.
Getting to the gym is one thing, getting inspired to go to the gym is something else, and having the desire to go the distance at the gym takes a lot of discipline. This is where BitGym comes in, offering games that make working out fun.
What is the cyclist to when the white stuff starts falling? Hang up the bike and grab the skis, or grind out the miles on an indoor trainer? With the newer breed of snow or ‘fat’ bikes hitting the market, the cycling season does not have to stop in the winter. The folks behind Twenty2 Cycles of Vail, Colorado agree with this idea and have introduced their own line of snow bikes, the Bully and Big Fat Bully (BFB).