Ice hockey stick
The blade is positioned at roughly a 135° angle from the axis of the shaft, giving the stick a partly 'L-shaped' appearance.
The lower part of the stick is wider, the angle is smaller, and the blade is slightly curved towards the direction of the play.
The oldest known hockey stick dates to the mid-1830s; it was made for William "Dilly" Moffatt (born 1829) from sugar maple wood and is now owned by the Canadian Museum of History.
[4] In the mid-19th century, the Starr Manufacturing Company began to sell Mic-Mac hockey sticks nationally and internationally.
By 1903, apart from farming, producing them was the primary occupation of the Mi'kmaq on reserves throughout Nova Scotia, particularly Shubenacadie, Indian Brook and Millbrook.
[5] In 1927 the department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia identified that the Mi'kmaq remained the "experts" at making hockey sticks.
[7] Hockey sticks were mostly made from the maple or willow trees, which was also a common choice for golf club shafts and wooden tools.
Foremost among these was creation of the laminated stick in the 1940s, where layers of wood were glued together and sandwiched to create a more flexible and durable design.
In recent years, the aluminum stick, as well as its wooden counterpart, have largely been replaced by more advanced composite designs.
Composite sticks generally weigh less than their aluminum forebears, and they can be manufactured with more consistent (and varied) physical properties than their wooden counterparts.
Carbon fiber sticks are ideal due to their light weight and favorable mechanical characteristics.
[16] With the bottom of the blade flat on the ice, a higher lie value corresponds to a more upright shaft.
[17] Players usually seek a lie that will put the blade flat on the ice while they are in their typical skating stance.
Hall of Fame center Wayne Gretzky, for example, used a stick with a low lie to correspond with his deep skating crouch and shorter height, whereas Hall of Fame defenceman Rod Langway used a stick with a very high lie number as he was very tall and tended to skate in a very upright position.
This number, which ranges from 40 through 160, is printed on the stick and corresponds to the amount of force (in pounds-force) that it takes to deflect or bend the shaft one inch.
Commonly, defencemen seek stiffer shafts, as their greater stiffness imparts more force on slap shots and improves stick-checking.
Forwards will commonly seek more flexible shafts, as they require less force to bend and are thus better suited to create quick and accurate wrist shots, as well as improving passing and stickhandling.
However, in the late 1950s, New York Rangers center Andy Bathgate began experimenting with "breaking" his stick blades to impart a curve, which he found made his slap shots behave in highly erratic ways.
These curves made slap shots behave very erratically, and in an era in which goalies did not wear masks, this eventually became an unacceptable danger.
The curve of a blade is limited at most levels of competitive hockey, generally to an amount between 1⁄2 and 3⁄4 inch (13 and 19 mm).
At the height of this era, players would often simply cross the blue line and let fly with a slap shot, hoping that the bizarre behavior of the puck would beat the goaltender.
In this era, goaltenders were irritated by the danger such wild shots posed to them and in response, the NHL began gradually reducing the amount of curve a blade could legally have.
In the modern game, the emphasis on shooting accuracy has largely eliminated any preference for extreme blade curves.
Additionally, coaches have used the "illegal equipment" penalty at key moments in games to win a power play, and in some cases, swing the momentum of an entire series, including the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals.
Hockey stick blades with a closed face will help keep shots low and powerful, with more straight-line velocity.
Blade patterns with open faces are great for getting the puck up in the air as quickly as possible in tight areas.
Hockey stick patterns that are listed as having toe curves are often preferred by forwards as they will allow them to lift the puck quicker and easier during shooting in tight spaces.
The particular curve, or the qualities the pattern is designed to have—for example, better for shooting, for puck handling, for passing—will have an impact on the length of the blade.
