Tag: hockey stick

To the Core

BauerBauer Hockey is looking to improve the performance of hockey sticks by going straight to the core. The new line of sticks feature a ROHACELL polymethacry limide (PMI) foam as a structural core in the blade that makes it extremely rigid yet good at withstanding extreme temperatures.

The trade magazine Reinforced Plastics noted, “To produce the Bauer ice hockey sticks, carbon fibre impregnated with epoxy resin is wrapped around the pre-formed rigid foam core. High temperatures are applied during the subsequent curing of the resin, yet ROHACELL remains stable and provides counter pressure. The small, uniform pores in the foam structure ensure that very little resin escapes into the foam cells of the core surface.”

The result is a stick that offers a uniform blade structure that won’t change even after taking many hits!

Bauer Hockey Official Website
[Via Reinforced Plastics: Bauer ice hockey sticks employ ROHACELL core material]

The Colt Takes Aim

Colt-HockeyThe has been a move to composite hockey sticks over the years, but these come at a cost – namely that the sticks cost around $300 or so. However, Daniel Lucchesi sees that these offer an advantage over wooden sticks, and he’s launched Colt Hockey to create composite sticks that are covered in nano-tech cladding that makes these virtually unbreakable.

These sticks are no less inflexible or heavy than traditional composite sticks, and Lucchesi is looking to Kickstarter to raise funding to bring these to market.

The coating, which was licensed from Canadian based Integran Technologies, was developed for hydraulic components in the aerospace and defense markets. This process, which is similar in concept to chrome plating, adds a thin layer of the nanocrystalline that gives the sticks a steel-like durability, but allows the stick to remain flexible. This could be one hockey stick that is ready to take aim. Video after the jump

Stick Sensor

PowershotWe’ve seen sensors make their way to all sorts of devices and the Quattriuum Team is looking to deliver the Powershot, the first performance sensor for hockey players via a Kickstarter project. The Powershot sensor, which is designed to attach to a hockey stick, can reportedly measure the puck speed, acceleration, shot speed, duration and angle of slapshots and snapshots.

The Powershot can further learn how the user plays and targets both strengths and weaknesses and follow progress over time while comparing performance to other players. It weighs only 50 grams and can store up to 1,000 shots – moreover it can sync with the FWD Powershot app for Android and iOS device. Video after the jump

PreCycle Your Hockey Stick

We’ve noted the trend in materials being used in the construction of hockey sticks. Composites are being used more and more and the advantage for players is clear, but so is the cost. Likewise, composite materials have a problem in that these are not easily recycled.

HockeyGreen is one company that has stepped up to offer a solution before it is a problem. It actually offers buyers the opportunity to “precycle” their sticks. With each new stick sold through Total Hockey retail stores or website buyers will receive a free return shipping label and can earn a $10 coupon towards a new stick. This is a good way to keep the broken composite sticks out of a landfill, and more importantly can be used by HockeyGreen for research in how to capture and extract some of the materials. Continue reading PreCycle Your Hockey Stick

Hockey Stick Tech

The times are changing in hockey, and as we’ve noted previously so are the materials used in making sticks. This week TheStar.com noted that even peewee players are taking to the ice with high-tech hockey sticks:

A generation ago… an elite team of 12-year-olds might have been lucky to have two players who could give a goalie pause when they pulled the trigger… Those days, when players carried sticks hewn largely from the forests of Ontario and Quebec, are gone. Today, sticks are made in factories from Mexico to China to Vietnam. Constructed of high-tech composite materials and bearing price tags that can reach $300, the sticks can now put dents in both goalie masks and in wallets. Continue reading Hockey Stick Tech

Composite Repair Coming to Hockey Sticks

A good hockey stick – especially one made of composite materials – isn’t cheap, and unfortunately it isn’t the sort of the thing that is treated with the utmost care and respect. It is in fact a tool that can be beat around pretty hard, and this in turn can get expensive when it breaks. One-piece composite sticks, made of layers of carbon fiber, can cost $300 or more, so not exactly cheap to replace.

But Randy Langille of Vancouver just sees this as an opportunity. He’s been repairing composite sticks since 2009 and now has 23 locations across Canada. His company Integral Hockey has adopted a process and special tools used in the manufacture of aerospace components to repair composite hockey sticks. Continue reading Composite Repair Coming to Hockey Sticks

From Hockey Sticks to Canes

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]

Ice (Hockey) Fusion

There has been a long debate whether cold fusion could ever actually be a renewable source of energy. We’ll let that debate sit for now and instead look at a different kind of cool fusion technology. This isn’t exactly cold fusion but instead is ice hockey Fusion technology, as in Easton’s new Fusion EQ50 hockey sticks, which come from the Synergy line offering power, balance and energy control. We knew there was energy somewhere in this.

The new technology hockey sticks give players greater puck authority with an innovative feature called Visible Focus Weight Technology, which is there to redistribute weight to the impact area to help offer better control and keep the puck on the blade.

This is a step forward from the SE16 stick, and the Easton EQ50 features a customizable weighted end cap for improved balance (customizable from 6.5 to 26.5 grams), and features an adjustable swing weight via four 5-gram end weights inside. The stick also features a Kevlar wrapped shaft to protect it from impacts and to help dampen vibrations. The Easton EQ50 is available now for $210, a small price to pay for this cool Fusion!

Video after the jump Continue reading Ice (Hockey) Fusion

Will the Machines Take Over… the Ice?

We continue to have fears that our reliance on technology could lead to the machines taking over, but maybe that is because we watch too many Terminator and The Matrix films (even the bad ones). Now there is news that the machines might not actually be in the process of taking over all mankind, maybe they’re just focused on the ice. Hockey Robotics is a newly created company born out of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and they specialize in hockey stick design, performance and durability testing.

Thus they haven’t actually created a robot hockey player, but rather the first very dynamic hockey stick testing robot, which is reportedly capable of properly mimicking the professional hockey slap shot. The company plans to launch this robot testing tool this summer.

So far Hockey Robotics has garnered the support of SBK Hockey, a leading Quebec-based hockey brand, and the company offers standardized hockey testing services to other brands, manufacturers, leagues and teams. But hockey players should worry that the robots will take them off the ice… at least for now!

Hockey Robotics Official Website