that beauty you see above is my new stick. it's a nike/bauer vapor apollo composite one piece i bought from hockeygiant.com. actually, i didn't "buy" it per se, but i used my mom's credit card to purchase it in her stead as a christmas gift for me since she doesn't know what the internet is. the best part is that it came to my house today, but i can't use it. i have to give it to her so she can wrap it up and give it to me on christmas. i'm 29 years old.
it was $50-pretty low on the price range for composites. i've seen maybe one or two offered in the $30-$50 range, but most i see are upwards of $100. i'm not saying they're not worth the money-i'm sure they're very good sticks, but what happens when someone takes a hack at your $240 Warrior Dolomite and cracks the shaft? tears.
i had to open the box it came in, because inside was also a jersey-another xmas gift from mom-that i will have to use sometime before christmas. i sliced the box open and there it was, shrouded in only a thin plastic wrap so of course i did what any man would do. i took it out and started messing with it. first of all it's really lite. it's about as lite as the bauer one55 wood stick i use right now, but i would rank that one as one of the lightest i've used. it's got a decent 85 flex which increases in stiffness depending on where you cut the shaft. i've never used a composite stick before, but apparently there's something in the technology called a "kick point" . apparently a lower kick point means that the lower end of the shaft is doing alot of the work in taking a shot and it springs out quicker, resulting in a shorter release time. i hear this is good for wristers and snappers, but not so much for slap shots because the shaft can't load up as much energy as is required for those shots that require a longer release time. this is good for me because despite the fact that i've been playing defense lately, i have no slap shot, but definitely take more pride than is warranted in my wrist shot and snap shot.
by the way, hockeygiant's delivery was quick and accurate. i ordered my stick and a customized jersey on thanksgiving and got it today-the folowing wednesday. maybe fedex is just going extra hard to try and keep the customers they have in this turbulent economy.
so now that i've lost the two people that actually look at this blog, i'll talk about how much i can't wait to use it. my first game after christmas is the 28th. i'm getting all giddy just thinking about cutting it, taping it, waxing it, etc.
