When the term “old school hockey” gets thrown around, a lot of things come to mind. Fighting, no helmets and goalies with no masks for example, but one of the biggest innovations in hockey came from an accident by Stan Mikita in the early 1960s.
The curved blade.
Prior to Stan Mikita getting his stick caught in the doorway, where the players come in and out of the bench, players used sticks with flat blades. The accident cracked Mikita’s blade but didn’t break it. As a result, he noticed a curve in his blade. Instead of going all the way back to the dressing room right away to grab a new stick, he slammed a puck into the boards, noticed a different sound and got his mind thinking.
While Mikita didn’t use that stick in the game, he kept the stick until it broke and started to experiment with curving his other sticks. What he noticed is that the blades needed to be heated up to the consistency of “spaghetti” as he once described it. From there he was able to shape it to his liking.
This also allowed him to shape his shots as well by creating shots with more movement, quicker wristers and harder slap shots.
It took him about a month to figure it out before he put it into game play but that accident changed the game forever. Of course his teammate Bobby Hull caught on and the pair set the league ablaze in the 1960s with a Stanley Cup, scoring titles and mvp trophies.
Today’s NHL players can get anything they can think of straight from the manufacturer without having to bend their own. Within these rules of course, very few players have a curve that a young hockey player can buy off the retail shelf. This gives them the ability to customize their stick to their specific style of game.
In this photo you can see what Patrick Kane used for a long time on the left and one he experimented with on the right. You can see the differences between Marian Hossa’s and Jonathan Toews’ sticks from what you can buy at the store and what they’ve actually used here.
Those guys all used pretty standard curves but then there are guys like Brandon Saad and Duncan Keith who get a little more creative with theirs. Saad has more of a heel curve as opposed to a toe curve. Speaking of a toe curve, get a look at a kink like Duncan Keith uses here. This allows Keith to reach out for pucks that are almost out of reach and pull them back into his body.
Stan Mikita created probably the most customizable and personalized piece of equipment in sports, all by accident. Next time something goes wrong with your equipment you should take a look and wonder if there is anything that can be improved on. Then you too could become an accidental innovator.
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