How To Buy Hockey Sticks

James: Hi, I'm James. This is Robin. We both play for East London Hockey Club.

I've been playing hockey now for about 15 years on Saturday, and we're here to talk to you about hockey sticks. So, they all come in different sizes and different shapes. You have straight ones.

If Robin holds up her stick, you can see straight down, go down, it's straight right down. Whereas opposed to mine, there's a bow. Some people say hockey sticks are hockey sticks, but as you can see, they're both different sizes, different weights as well.

As a defender, I generally prefer a heavier stick. It's better for tackling, stopping and hitting the ball out for clearances. Now hockey sticks, as we were saying, some of them are bowed.

Now, the reason why some of those are bowed as to, opposed to being straight, is to the way they are flicking. If you were to watch an international level game, you would see a lot of the players, specially the back player flinging the ball pretty much the full length of the pitch, and a bow stick would generally help over a very good straight stick.
Robin: Originally, hockey sticks used to be made completely of wood.

But today, they are made of a carbon fibre and a carbon mixture, which helps protect the stick and stops the wood from splintering and damaging players. Now as you can see from my hockey stick, this is a thirty-six and a half inch stick. So it's perfect for my height, whereas some players will play with a stick that's an inch longer, or there's even inches shorter for junior players when they're starting to play.

When you begin playing hockey, it's really important you get the perfect stick for you in terms of weight. So a defender, as James was saying, is a heavier stick because you need more power to clear the ball. Whereas an attacking player tends to have a lighter stick which is easier for dribbling the ball out.

If you're mid-fielder like my self, then you can have either. So, I feel more comfortable with a heavier stick because I like to hit the ball hard, whereas other attacking mid-fielders will choose a lighter stick to use. When you're looking at buying a stick, they range greatly in price.

When you're starting out, you can pick up a beginning stick for about 20 to 30 pounds. But they do go up in price, all the way up to 200 pounds plus. For us playing every Saturday and throughout the week, our sticks are normally about 60 and 100 pounds for a good quality stick.

Different brands of hockey sticks can be Grays, Kookaburra, Slazenger and they start off with really basic sticks and can go to the top end, so it's really important that you try ones out. Adidas also do a range of hockey sticks that are really expensive and they kind of develop new technology for those sticks. And so, that's just been a little bit of advice about the different kinds of hockey sticks, the weights and the lengths and how to buy a hockey stick.

So that's me and James. .