THC Hockey UpCycles!

Breaking a hockey stick is as common as putting socks on today. You wake up in the morning and slip one on each foot and as you put on your shoes to get on with your day, not even a millisecond of thought is put into the socks because its just something you do every morning. Well the same can be said for a broken hockey stick. Everyday across the thousands of arenas in North America sticks are breaking and does anyone give a milliseconds thought when they see one sticking out of the arena’s garbage pail???

Well believe when I tell you that there are 2.2Million hockey sticks sold each year in USA & Canada alone. Does that mean there are 2M sticks breaking? Maybe, perhaps not sure well in a recent scientific study conducted by the University of Phoenix dept of environment, the study concluded that under optimal conditions a hockey stick made up of carbon fibre and resin would take approx. 600 years to decompose. “That is if air temperature, sun exposure and moisture are constant from year to year. Since that is a variable that cannot be determined the chances of Carbon Fibre decomposing is never”; claims Sarah Heinberg Science Student at the University.

That didn’t stop Jarrid Adler (GM) of the small hockey Stick company THC Hockey based in Montreal. “I had received a return from a broken stick one afternoon and I got to thinking what do I do with these broken hockey sticks? This started my quest on finding out more as to what the big companies like Reebok, Easton and Bauer do with all their broken sticks? To my surprise I was shocked to find out that not only did these companies lack any form of recycling programs, in fact they have all been known to throw away excess stock of old models and branding that they no longer use in their marketing repetoir into landfills and garbage dumps.”

This was a pressing matter for Adler, who was on a personal quest to find an immediate solution. There has been little success unlike the metal industry where the materials can be melted down and recycled into new material with Carbon fibre extracting the raw material from the resine is very difficult and costly. However some Industrial Design friends and a bottle of wine over a casual dinner and, THC Hockey was not only making High Quality Carbon Fibre Hockey sticks, they now had the answer to helping hockey do it’s part in decreasing it’s Carbon footprints.

After looking at the hockey stick and studying its properties, we realised that once the stick is broken it is only damaged at that point. Unlike wood Carbon fibre doesn’t splinter and crack thus leaving the unbroken part as strong as ever, says Adler.” We came up with 9 different products that can easily be produced with a broken hockey stick. Our array of shovels will be ready for sale on our website for the Winter 2011-2012 and we have reached out to Petro Canada and Esso to purchase all their window wiping squeeges and Snow brushes for your cars all made with broken hockey sticks… How’s that for Canadian!

There are some even more intrinsic products being developed but due patent information we will just have to wait for their debuts.

In the meantime if you wish to do your part and help clean up old garages and arenas from the broken sticks in landfills, contact info@thchockey.com for information of drop off sites and ideas of how you can help at home to reduce hockey’s environmental impact.