By Riley Denver
There is a new lightweight, super-durable stick on the market that has been credited with adding speed to players’ shots: the Easton Synergy. What’s more, the secret is out and it’s catching on.
Holmes Ghassemi, one of the designers of the stick at Easton, says the core of the stick is made of very light graphite fibres and the outer shield is made of kevlar.
“We’ve been using kevlar for a while because of its impact resiliency,” says Ghassemi. “It’s very good at dampening the vibrations from shooting or receiving a pass.”
Ghassemi says the result is a shaft with the lowest flex point yet that has quickly earned a reputation for being very hard to break.
“That’s what allows for the quicker release,” says Ghasssemi. “That’s what we’ve been trying to achieve, is the lower kick point.”
The kick point is the point on the stick where the shaft flexes. Ghassemi says the lower the kick point, the more velocity is added to the shot.
“It makes even an average player much better,” says Ghassemi. “It reduces the need for technical proficiency.”
Ottawa 67’s captain Zenon Konopka raves about his Synergy stick.
“It’s an unbelievable stick. The puck reacts off it like a golf ball off a driver,” Konopka says.
“I swear it adds 10 miles an hour to your shot.”
Konopka, who switched from the Easton “Ultra-Lite” stick and who is the team’s second-leading scorer, is one of the few junior players to use the Synergy stick.
Most junior teams can’t afford to supply 25 players with $220 sticks over the course of a nearly 70-game season.
Teammate Carter Trevisani and Hull Olympiques star Ales Hemsky are also believers in the Synergy, which is becoming increasingly hard to find.
The price for such an innovative hockey stick: between $220 and $240. Even high-end hockey sticks usually cost less than half that. But the price doesn’t seem to be deterring many.
“The price hasn’t slowed sales at all,” says Ron Potelle of Valiquette Sports, on Carling Street. “We’ve already sold half of our last order.”
Ghassemi says Easton will expand the line for 2002.
“The concept has proven itself, so we’re going to make it a stand-alone category,” he says.“We’re going to make junior and intermediate sticks and expand the senior line.”
“The demand is bigger than the supply,” says Matt Kovacs, an
Easton spokesperson.
“They quickly sell every stick they make,” says Kovacs.
Konopka agrees, saying “The only problem is they’re so hard to get, the demand is so high.”
But not everybody is a fan of the new stick.
It’s not every day NHL goaltenders complain about the sticks their counterparts use, but Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils has gone on record to say that these sticks give shooters an unfair edge.
He has started an unofficial campaign to get them banned from the NHL.
According to Ghassemi, about 200 NHL players use the Synergy stick. That’s a little more than a quarter of all the players in the league.
Of those, at least nine Ottawa Senators, like Marian Hossa, Daniel Alfredsson and Radek Bonk, have switched to the Synergy stick. Hossa, Alfredsson and Bonk switched from sticks made by Mission, Jofa and Victoriaville, respectively.
There is however an issue with the stick’s curve. Some minor hockey players have been penalized for playing with Synergy sticks whose blades were curved too dramatically.
Dave Leger, CHA manager of regulations and administration, says if a player doesn’t know his stick has an illegal curve, he is still subject to an infraction.
“It’s buyer beware,” Leger says.