Dan Replies:
Dear SP: If you were my son, you would enjoy playing with a wood stick. The cost of skates and the equipment needed to play the game safely is very expensive. Add to that the cost of ice time and most parents are making a sacrifice to have you play the game. At the skill level of a youth hockey player, a composite stick is no advantage to your game. Perhaps your teammates' parents have caved in to their player's wishes to have a composite, but that doesn't make it a need, only a want.
I suspect that if a stick manufacture came out with a $300 wood stick and an NHL star played with it, it would be a marketing success because we tend to equate price with value. There's a difference and it's no more clear than with composite sticks. If they were suddenly to all be priced at $5, no one would get caught dead playing with one.
Do your family's budget a favor and learn to play the game with a wooden stick. I guarantee it won't deter your path to the NHL.
Dear PF: Truth be told, in the hands of a professional player, composite sticks will add perhaps 5% to the speed of their shot. In the hands of a Squirt or a PeeWee, I don't think it will have any effect on the speed of his shot. Adam Oates prefers a wooden stick over composites because he says you have a better feel for the puck. I agree with Adam there is a better feel with a wooden stick. Therefore, I'd recommend a wooden stick over composites for that reason alone.
On the issue of cost, there is some talk in the NHL to prohibit the use of the composites. Not because they are more effective, but because of their cost. Teams' stick budgets have gone out of sight with their use. They break (and chip) as easily as wood and at 4 to 5 times the cost of a wood stick, the NHL teams' position is understandable. The Ducks' overspent their stick budget by December last season.
Many defensemen are going back to wood sticks because, as you might have seen in the Stanley Cup playoffs, on several occasions a D-man's composite stick would break on a shot from the point, the puck would be recovered by the opposing team and now the D-man has to defend without a stick. It was at that moment that some of the players decided to go back to the more reliable wooden sticks, which wear out over time, but don't snap with the frequency of composites.
