Hockey Sticks

Simplistically stated a hockey stick is a wooden or composite piece of sport’s equipment used in field hockey, ice hockey, or roller hockey to move the ball or puck around on the ice or other type of surface. There is nearly a symbiotic relationship between hockey players and their hockey sticks. Whether it is the round edged, club-like field hockey sticks or the banana hooked ice hockey sticks, players form a singular and close attachment.

You cannot play hockey without a stick. Field hockey sticks, warrior hockey sticks, or mini hockey sticks are required to play. Two piece or one-piece, you need to select the right size and weight. You also need to select the right type – goalie or other, the right hand, right or left, the right level, beginner to professional and the right shape with a blade curve that works for you. Prices will run from the inexpensive $10 - $20 wooden models to the top-of-the-line composites worth $300. Reebok hockey sticks in cheap wooden models cost around $14. Bauer Vapor V hockey sticks and Vapor V junior hockey sticks are composite models costing between $100 and $200. The Warrior hockey stick ranges in price from over $100 to close to $300. The cheapest composite or wooden hockey stick, however would be the discount hockey sticks.

But, why all the fuss? Perhaps, it lies in hockey stick history or with the inventor of the hockey stick. The earliest surviving hockey stick on record is a solid hand-carved hickory stick dating back to between 1852 and 1856, around the time of the game’s North American origins. It sold for $2.2 million (CAD) in 2006. Its shaft and blade reflects the nature of the stick at the time. They are straight.

Throughout the 20th century, refinements defined the emerging modern hockey stick. In the 1920s St. Mary’s Wood Specialty Products, Canada, introduced the first one-piece sticks. Hepeler, Hilborn, Pirate and Starr soon joined as premier manufacturers of hockey sticks. In the 1920s, as well, the traditional shape of a shorter and wider blade became popular. The length was also adapted - Ernie “Moose” Johnson’s lengthy stick caused the NHL to regulate it.

The bent blade also rose out of the “Roaring Twenties.” Speculation says Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators first tried to bend his stick during the 1926-1927 season. Traditionally, however, New York Rangers’ Andy Bathgate has the credit with creating the “banana blade” in the 1940s. His coach hated it, but the Black Hawk’s coach approved of it for Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull.

As a result, stick manufacturers began producing curved sticks. The NHL stopped the curve from becoming too dangerous in 1967-1968, altering it once again in the 1970-71 season. Regulations now state a curve can be no greater than half-an-inch.

The one-piece Hilborn, Starr or Rex stick carved by Nova Scotian Mi’kmaq Natives from yellow birch, rock elm, white ash or hornbeam is gone. Composite hockey sticks of wood, aluminum, graphite, Kevlar and titanium have replaced them. Sticks now hang in a hockey stick acrylic holder and not on wooden pegs. The players have also changed, but the close binds that tie a player to his or her stick remains.