Top prospects Tyler Seguin and Taylor Hall make their first visit to the Philadelphia Flyers locker room and talk sticks with forward Danny Briere.
Highlights Include:
Briere prefers a whippier, more flexible stick shaft (77 flex) and a softer stick blade
Briere compares his stick to that of teammate Simon Gagne, who prefers a stiffer stick shaft (102 flex) and a harder, more rigid stick blade
Briere notes that he begins the season with a stiffer flex (87 to 90 flex) because he is much stronger from off-season strength training but that he intentionally decreases the flex on his sticks (75 to 77 flex) mid-season to account for wear and tear on the body and slightly reduced strength levels
Briere keeps track of the total number of sticks he uses throughout the course of the season by marking the top of the butt ends of his sticks. At the time of this taping, he was up to 111 sticks for the season!
Pay special attention to the end of the taping and observe, first-hand, the height difference between Briere and Chris Pronger, standing side by side!
Video courtesy of NHL.com and the NHL VideoCenter’s “DRAFT Channel”
REPLAY the Series, Fueled by Gatorade, re-stages classic games between some of the nation’s biggest high school sports rivalries.
The Gatorade REPLAY II broadcast premiere will air nationally Sunday, June 20, on Fox Sports Network. This season’s REPLAY featured a Classic rematch between the 1999 teams of two Detroit area hockey powerhouses, the Trenton Trojans and the Detroit Central Catholic (DCC) Shamrocks.
Trenton and DCC were unable to finish their second match-up of the 1999 season after a life threatening injury forced an early end to the game with the score tied 4-4 (a skate blade slashed a player’s neck; the player recovered fully). After this game, the Trenton players were unable to fully recover from their teammate’s injury and ended up losing in the first round of the state hockey playoffs. However, DCC went on to win the state title, but had one loss on their record thanks to Trenton’s win during their first game.
The Trenton DCC rematch took place in Detroit on May 9, 2010 with crowds of fans, friends and family cheering the teams on. The players were also joined by some of the biggest names in hockey including Gatorade REPLAY game day commissioner, Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, as well as Scotty Bowman and Brendan Shanahan who served as honorary coaches for Catholic Central and Trenton, respectively.
Watch amateur footage of Jeremy Roenick as an 18-year old, starring at Thayer Academy in Marshfield, Massachusetts, during a “Hockey Night In Boston” (HNIB) feature segment on the best pro prospects from the New England area in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft.
Video courtesy of personal, archived VHS footage via the former WSBK-TV38 Boston.
The following article is courtesy of Keith Barnes of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via Trib Total Media, Inc. and pittsburghlive.com.
NHL PLAYERS PICKY ABOUT THEIR EQUIPMENT
By Keith Barnes, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 16, 2007
(Former) Penguins forward Petr Sykora may have the most recognizable and unique stick in the NHL.
It has a royal blue shaft, and instead of a rounded end to the blade, his has a straight edge that is perpendicular to the ice.
And he’s never really happy about it.
“I work on my stick daily,” Sykora said. “I try up-shoe, down-shoe, a little bit more toe curve, and I don’t have the same stick every day. I just go with what feels right.”
Welcome to the world of hockey stick terminology, which sounds confusing to fans but not to the NHL’s best, who take these things seriously.
Up-shoe is when the break in the curve of a stick begins toward the toe. Down-shoe is when the break starts toward the heel. Toe curve is the bend in the blade.
To get his stick just so, it takes Sykora hours of tedious work and examination. There are even times when he changes things during games.
“I just go to the game, and if I score a goal, I’ll think that it’s because I had a little up-shoe, and that’s why I scored the goal, so the next day I come into practice and try to work on it,” Sykora said.
“Sometimes it feels long or short, and I’m never happy. Sometimes I change sticks between periods if it feels too long, and I’ll make it shorter by like half a millimeter so I can get it in my head that it feels good.”
Believe it or not, all of this comes after the stick companies receive a template for each player’s curve preference and produce each stick to their exact specifications.
“Some guys like (Evgeni) Malkin aren’t very picky, so once he finds one, all he wants to do is tape it up and go, and it’s that simple, where other guys are in there working feverishly on these things,” Penguins equipment manager Dana Heinze said. “With the curves, every single guy has his niche in what he likes, and who knows why?”
Options aplenty
Though it may sound as if Sykora has gone off the deep end in regards to his stick work, he’s not alone. Nearly every NHL player has some kind of quirk about his stick, shaft or blade.
Whether it’s an old-fashioned single-piece wood stick such as the one used by Georges Laraque, the composite shaft with the wooden blade insert preferred by team captain Sidney Crosby(*Note: Crosby switched to a one-piece composite for the 2009-2010 NHL season), or the one-piece composite stick of center Maxime Talbot, every player has an idiosyncrasy.
Crosby may be as picky as anyone about his blades. Every time he receives a shipment, he’ll sit in the equipment room going through up to 72 a day. He discards many before finally coming up with a select few that suit his needs.
“I like my stick to be pretty straight, so if there’s any bit of curve on it, I try to make it straight as possible,” Crosby said. “The ones you buy in a store are never the same pattern, but the one I used to use growing up was Wendel Clark, and it was a little bigger curve than what I use now. My dad always told me to use a straighter stick because you learn the technique of shooting a lot more with a straighter stick and, if you have a curve, you might try to flick the puck and try to put it upstairs (on the goal) all the time.”
Ahead of the curve
According to NHL rules, a player is allowed to have up to three-quarters of an inch of curve on his stick blade. That curvature was increased from the half-inch allowed by the league before the 2004-05 lockout.
If a player is caught using an illegal stick during a game, he will be assessed a minor penalty. But the last time that happened to a Penguins player was Nov. 29, 2003, when defenseman Marc Bergevin was sent off 23 seconds into the second period of a 4-3 loss to Carolina.
However, that shouldn’t happen again anytime soon.
“We have a team rule when (general manager) Ray Shero came on board that every player’s stick has to be legal, and the manufacturers know that we don’t accept sticks that aren’t legal,” Heinze said. “Last year when (Malkin) came on board, his curves were a little illegal, and immediately, we had to work with him, and that was hard because European players are used to that huge curve, and they can handle the puck like that.”
A stick’s curvature is measured from the heel to the toe, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the actual curve starts at the heel. Some players prefer that their curve begins all the way at the back of the stick (down-shoe), while others allow the blade to go straight, then taper more as it goes more toward the toe (up-shoe).
“There’s some weirdos out there when it comes to their sticks, I’ll tell you that,” (former) New York Rangers center Scott Gomez said. “Some guys have the same curve their whole career, and some of them switch, but it’s different. It all depends on how you’re going and what you’re doing.”
Changing times
One of the differences between today and 10 years ago has been the influx of composite blades. Because they’re not made of wood that can be made malleable with a blowtorch, there is a tendency for them to crack under extreme heat.
That doesn’t mean players don’t try. But even though a player may like the curve he’s using now, it doesn’t mean that was the way it’s always been.
“The longer you play, you change it a bit, because when I first started, I had a way different curve,” Carolina center Rod Brind’Amour said. “I had more of a heel curve when I was younger, but when I played with Brett Hull (in St. Louis) … especially as a young kid, you want to do what he was doing, so I tried to get more of a toe curve, but it just changes. As a centerman, I don’t necessarily get a lot of shots, so I want one I can handle a little better, so I take the curve out.”
A change in position can necessitate a curve alteration. But whatever the case, players will find an excuse to fuss over their stick.
“Over the last few years, I’ve been expected to get one-timers on the power play, so I made my stick to hit the puck as hard as I can,” Sykora said. “Maybe I gave up a little on my backhand and when the ice is bad, my stick gets really whippy, so it’s hard to pick up passes and stuff like that, so you have to really find yourself in a situation where you’re comfortable with your stick.
Not that Sykora — or anyone else, for that matter — ever really is.
Thanks again to Keith Barnes of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via Trib Total Media, Inc. and pittsburghlive.com for a great read! The original, full article can be viewed here.
Watch Petr Sykora, in action, show us his UNIQUE way of preparing his stick!
The following article is courtesy of the Vancouver Province via CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. and CANADA.com.
THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT How long should your kids’ hockey sticks be? You may as well ask how long their hair should be. Vancouver Province, December 30, 2007
How long should your kids’ hockey sticks be? You may as well ask how long their hair should be.
Basically, it’s whatever they (not you) are comfortable with (within reason), with the caveat that if the stick’s a tad too long today they’ll grow into it (like that sweater you bought them for Christmas).
It’s one of the questions coaches hear the most in tyke, atom, peewee and beyond.
And when they outgrow a stick you can lengthen it with a wooden plug on the end. (Try that with the sleeves on a sweater.)
“The longer the stick you have the longer your reach, obviously,”Ryan Shannon said after scoring two goals in three games for the Canucks earlier this season, earning a demotion to the farm in Manitoba. “But with a really long stick you’re sacrificing feel and the amount of control you have, so there’s always a fine line.”
Bare bones, the shorter the stick the better puck control a player has; the longer the stick, the better to check with.
Let’s start with the long ones — and not with the player on the Canucks you think of first: Willie Mitchell and his league-maximum 63-inch shaft.
No, it’s Canuck newcomer Mike Weaver — all 5-foot-9 of him.
When the right-hand-shooting defenceman arrived in Vancouver after being claimed off waivers from Pittsburgh, his hockey gear was a day behind him.
So he borrowed a stick from one of the few other right-handed shooters on the team: 6-foot-4 Trevor Linden.
“His stick was off by about five inches,” Weaver, seven inches shorter than Linden, says. “It was completely off. My stick’s taller than his.”
The knob of (Mike) Weaver’s stick reaches his hairline when the tip of the toe is on the ice. That’s on skates.
“Hey, I’m a defensive defenceman,” Weaver says. “My main job’s to stop pucks so having a short stick is really not going to help me. And I don’t have the hardest slapshot, but I’m able to get it away pretty quick.
“If you’re able to juggle it that you’re able to do both things at once, that’s great.”
Weaver’s stick actually used to be taller than him, by almost two inches, but he felt he needed to cut it a bit to improve his shot. “At the same time, I’ve still got that length I need.”
Up front, among the skill guys, it’s a different story.
Needing to work the puck close to their feet and avoid the other guy’s stick — the opposite of trying to whack the puck away — the sticks of centremen in particular are found to be anywhere from chest high to about the bottom lip.
“I’ve got a short stick, way below the chin,” Flyers sniper Simon Gagne says.
It didn’t always used to be.
When he was young he cut it to nose level because coaches told him he’d have a better shot with a longer stick.
“As time went on, I adjusted to what I was comfortable with when you get the puck,” Gagne says. “If my stick’s too short my head will be down. I want to have a good shot. I’ve found it, in the middle — not too short, not too long.”
And, with 88 goals over the past two seasons, not too bad.
“It’s working fine for me,” he says, smiling.
Brendan Morrison is another guy who’s found a happy medium — which is about chin-high, a stick length he’s had for as long as he can remember.
“I have a bit of a reach being a guy, I guess, who’s a little bit smaller,” Morrison says. “But it’s not so long where you can’t handle the puck in tight.”
A master at handling the puck in tight is, of course, Henrik Sedin.
He and his brother Daniel (Sedin) have cut about three inches off the length of their sticks since they arrived in the NHL seven seasons ago, he says.
Their sticks now come up to about their collarbones, with Daniel’s being perhaps a couple of millimetres longer.
“My first couple of years here, with a longer stick, it was tough to handle the puck in the corners,” Henrik says. “When you get it in your feet there’s not a lot of room with a longer stick.”
The award for all-time shortest stick by a Canuck, however, probably goes to Cliff Ronning.
Forget the collarbone, his sticks were lucky to make it to the sternum when he graduated from the New Westminster Bruins.
“When I played junior hockey it was really short,” the former centre says. “Like mid-chest, it was crazy.
“When I got to the pro level, the guys were stronger and I needed a little more reach, but it was still fairly short, mostly for puck control, stickhandling.
“It’s much harder to control a longer hockey stick.”
TRUTH AND LIES, BY CLIFF RONNING
Just as important as length is the lie — the angle where the shaft and blade meet.
A 5-lie is about a 45-degree angle, a 6-lie about 47 degrees.
Each increase in lie brings the top of the shaft about 1 1/4 inches forward over the blade, so a lower-lie stick is good for players who carry the puck out front and a higher lie is better for players who play with the puck close to their skates.
Put another way, if you skate upright use a higher lie; if you skate down low use a lower lie.
“There are times a player thinks he’s using the right stick, but you can see it’s not the right stick,” Cliff Ronning said one day watching the Canucks practise. “He’ll lose the puck in certain situations.”
Ronning is now a rep for Warrior hockey sticks and was one of the best puck handlers the game has seen.
“Guys who are fancier stickhandlers have a higher lie because they pull the puck into their feet, guys like Ovechkin,” Ronning said. “Forsberg is the best example of a higher lie. He played with the puck in his feet so much and would hold you off with one hand.”
You won’t mistake Mike Weaver for Peter Forsberg.
“For reaching purposes my lie is pretty flat,” the Canucks defenceman said. “It allows me to reach out and still keep my blade flat on the ice.”
Thanks again to the Vancouver Province via CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. and CANADA.com for a great read! The original, full article can be viewed here.
For even more information on stick selection, watch the following video, as St. Louis Blues Equipment Manager, Bert Godin, takes us “Inside the Equipment Room” to breakdown stick size and lie.
Video courtesy of NHL.com and the NHL VideoCenter’s “Inside The Equipment Room” series
The Smarthockey Training Ball is recognized as the #1 off-ice training ball in the world and can be found in the locker rooms of NHL and leading college hockey teams.
If you’re still undecided, provided below are raw, unbiased SMARTHOCKEY TRAINING BALL-user testimonials, courtesy of ModSquadHockey, “the Consumer Reports of the hockey equipment industry”.
“It’s an off-ice training aid. Until someone figures out a way to make a vulcanized rubber disc slide smoothly across surfaces like rugs, blacktop, asphalt, etc., it’s probably the best thing you’re going to find.”
“I haven’t had a translation problem with this from off to on ice at all. Mainly because I don’t work on speed. Honestly, stickhanding really fast is not going to help you. For me its all about control and pull/pushes of the puck. I generally do alot of work on my backhand/forehand toe drags with this ball.”
“The smarthockey ball isn’t supposed to replace the puck; Its supplementary guys. You work on quick hands and develop your forearm muscles a little. If it doesn’t feel like an ice hockey puck, then so what? As long as it is somewhat comparable to an ice puck, then it works like it was intended to on dry land.”
“I have a few of these around the house. I like them simply because it gives me something to practice with in weight and movement that I cant get with a puck on my floors. It all boils down to muscle memory and not the shape of the object.”
“Here’s exactly where I feel the problem with the smart ball lies – using it actually promotes incorrect muscle memory! yes – the bounce might be the same (but not really in my opinion because of the difference in shape/height), but it’s still a ball – not a puck: it’s rounded vs angled corners + it’s faller + narrower because of that it’s a LOT easier to stick handle with the ball especially if you are doing a dribble (quick narrow stickhandling) since you can just sort of cup it & roll it – you can not do it with a puck – at the very least the dribble can’t be that narrow as it can be with the ball.”
“Agreed using a ball is not like using a puck, especially when you go wide. I find the smart hockey and golf balls are harder to maneuver far away from my body (i.e. as far as i can reach) because of their shape. However, the majority of the actions translate and I find that I can pull it off nicely with a puck when I get the chance. I agree, there is no way to mimic the feel of a puck. Further from that, no matter what off ice surface you use, you will never be able to mimick the speed/characteristics of a puck travelling across your chosen playing surface (whether it be ice, painted concrete, sport/whatever court, etc), therefore off ice training can never be a replacement for proper training sessions. I don’t see that you can really screw yourself up by using stickhandling balls as an accompaniment to proper training, as long as you acknowledge that you can’t do everything with a ball that you can do with a puck. For those things you can do, it’s better than nothing.”
“I’ve used the ball all summer and when I went on the ice this fall and tried the same moves it was a little disappointing. The biggest problems were controlling the slipperiness of the puck, the difference of cupping the puck and doing the stickhandling while moving. I would say about 50% of the skill translated to the ice, the other got left with the ball. None the less it’s better then not doing anything.”
“The weight is similar to a puck but with a higher center of mass and obviously the rolling ball doesn’t react like a puck.”
“I find that the smart hockey ball is best used on smooth cement. If the asphakt is rough then the ball just hops all over the place.”
Bill Lindsay takes you behind the scenes to learn why and how certain Florida Panthers players choose their sticks and what the varying curves do for them.
Highlights Include:
Players send a mold or copy of their respective blade pattern to the manufacturer of their choice to produce a custom stick
Defensemen typically prefer stiffer sticks for improved slapshots, while forwards typically prefer whippier sticks for improved wrist shots
Karlis Skrastins: short blade in length for a defenseman, small/medium curve, which makes it easier to use on both the forehand and backhand
Nathan Horton: big toe curve for improved wrist shots off the toe of the blade, but makes backhand control more difficult
Brett McLean: heel curve (open wedge) to shoot off the heel of the blade; uses a longer blade in length and a very stiff flex
Rostislav Olesz: straighter stick, which enables better stickhandling control on the forehand and backhand, but makes shooting more difficult
In the end, hockey player stick selection almost always comes down to PERSONAL PREFERENCE!
Video courtesy of GrowlTV and “Inside The Panthers”
PhoenixCoyotes.com and Coyotes TV looked into the thought process as to why some players use white tape and some use black tape on the blade of their stick.
How do YOU tape your sticks?! Let us know in the Comments!
As an aside, this video was published only a little over one year ago, March 2008! Very interesting, as I’m sure you noticed, the significant number of OLD faces in NEW places, as many of the Coyote players featured have since been either traded, acquired by other NHL teams via free agency, or waived/released in this new salary-cap-driven era of today’s NHL.
Video courtesy of PhoenixCoyotes.com and Coyotes TV
If you’re still undecided, provided below are raw, unbiased GREEN BISCUIT-user testimonials, courtesy of ModSquadHockey, “the Consumer Reports of the hockey equipment industry”.
“The Green Biscuit off ice puck was mentioned in the Hockey Show thread so I ordered a couple. They came yesterday and we have been out in the road with them today. I can safely say that the GB puck is the best I have tried and I have about 6 different types. It runs nicely for passes and stickhandling. Highly recommended.”
“I’ve noticed that the Green Buscuit works better on uneven surfaces than on smooth surfaces since there are less points of friction with the puck. On smooth surfaces, it feels heavier. Great for outdoors.”
“This was developed and produced by Tom Pederson, formerly of the Sharks. He is a customer of mine and has given me 2 of these, a first gen and 2nd gen. Both were great. First time I used one was on a cobblestone-ish driveway and never once did the puck leave the ground. It blew me away. Highly recommended.”
“Yeah, it works very well on cobblestone or rough surfaces. Even better than on a smoother surface. The actual weight is less than a real ice puck, but this was done on purpose. The weight was lightened to compensate for the drag caused by the friction between the puck and the surface you are using it on. This is also why I think it doesn’t work as well on a smoother hard surface. On a smooth surface, there are more points of contact between the puck and the ground, causing more drag, making the puck feel heavier than an actual ice puck.”
“I bought three about 3 weeks ago. I have my team use them to warm up with, on concrete prior to games. The concrete has seems but very smooth I am talking about the apron around the rink, when the pucks hits them it does jump but at very acceptable levels. The boys are sqts (10 yrs old). The pucks chip very easily, edges are chipped and pieces are broke off. At $8-9 bucks each I would say they are too expensive given the durability. Given the conditions they are used in they should last longer. They are not shooting them only passing, the pucks do leave the ground when they do saucer passes that is about it. Maybe they are only supposed to be used for stickhandling?”
“I received 2 about a week ago, We were using them on smooth concrete inside of a firehouse passing, one skipped over the stick and hit the wall and shattered, taking 2 chuncks out. We were not shooting these just making passes. I like the way they slide, I just dont want to get the other one out yet because i dont want it to break.”
“Went out to a basketball court with my inlines and the greenbiscuit yesterday afternoon and it worked really well. I was really impressed with how well it handled and I will be ordering them for my shop on Monday.”
“I received 3 of them today. I bought them for my boys to use as potential warm up pucks prior to games. They currently use smarthockey and sweet hands balls. The green biscuit slides better than any other roller puck I have seen, the tests online are accurate. As for a replacement to a smart hockey ball, they are great for passing, better than the ball in fact. While stickhandling, they do tend to flip a bit however with increased wrist roll you can settle that down. That can be a god thing as adequate wrist roll is very important to puck control. The biscuit does not slide as easily as the ball rolls while stickhandling but is a great replacement for a puck for passing. I am not a roller player but I imagine this will be a good product for game play. “
“The Green Biscuit pucks seemed ok. The puck does slide very well. If you don’t want any issues with it flipping over when practicing, just don’t tape or wax your stick blade, and you should be fine. You’ll tear up your stick on the asphalt, so I’d recommend buying a cheap outdoor stick.”
The Smarthockey Training Ball is recognized as the #1 off-ice training ball in the world and can be found in the locker rooms of NHL and leading college hockey teams.
