Complete Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Stick Guide

My first stick after I graduated from using wood and started playing competitive hockey was a Wayne Gretzky Easton aluminum. If you played hockey in the early 1990s, the only thing you wanted in your hands was The Great One’s Easton HPX-5100. Today’s Toronto Maple Leafs fans may feel the same about skating with their favorite player’s stick.

This is your complete guide to which sticks the Toronto Maple Leafs players prefer to use in game action.

Hockey stick technology has come a long way since players like Bobby Orr, Allan Stanley, Tim Horton, and even Taro Tsujimoto used their wooden versions to patrol the blueline. Stick technology is still improving. No longer are serious players heating the glue on their replacement blades to fit into their Gretzky aluminum shafts. If you’ve purchased a hockey stick in the last decade then it’s very likely that you’re using a composite. (Apologies to everyone playing pickup and beer league with the nickname “Oldtimer” who are sticking with their wooden sticks.)

The composite twigs are ideal for ensuring max velocity on shots. There are sticks with carbon fibers, ones with nickel-cobalt, graphite, graphene, and even micro-sized grains. Today’s sticks have been built for more absorbency and power and are incredibly light in weight.

This does come at a cost. Today’s sticks are also substantially more expensive than they used to be. I have seen players and their parents far more upset about breaking a stick than losing a hockey game. In fact, one of the angriest I’ve ever seen anyone in a hockey rink (and I have been present for far too many in-stands brawls) was when a AAA player purposefully broke his stick on the boards after his opponent scored a goal. While the player was unhappy, his father was furious. The entire arena heard this man loudly share his displeasure. He let everyone know that his son just lit $300 on fire and that he wasn’t buying another hockey stick for him. Surrounded by others who have been sucked into paying big sums for their children’s sticks, the crowd was firmly on this father’s side.

When spending exorbitantly on this essential piece of equipment, players need to choose wisely. Some are very loyal to a particular brand and most will find the flex, lie, and curve they like and won’t deviate. A stick’s flex measures how much it will bend on a shot. The lower the number, the more flexible it is. The higher a number, the stiffer. A stiffer stick is better for slap shots while a more flexible stick is ideal for wrist shots. A stick’s lie is the angle it’s at when the blade is flat to the ice. For example, the standard lie of 5.5 sits at a 46-degree angle between the ice and shaft. The curve refers to the depth of the curvature of the blade. Individual players have preferences for all these different facets to their stick.

For those who love to know which stick to buy to match your Toronto Maple Leafs hockey hero or for those who just like to know what everyone is using, we’ve got you covered.