Blade pattern and curve: Blade pattern is the most important part of the ice hockey stick, which determines the quality and radian of passing and shooting. Beginners should try to avoid selecting sticks with large radian or straight blade patterns. Beginners should gradually know their shooting habits, skating center and their own features in practice and competitions to determine the selection of the sticks.

What is the Flex?

Flex means the pounds of strength that can bend the stick for 1 inch. For examples, if the Flex value is 100, it means that player can use 100 pounds of strength to bend the stick for 1 inch.

What’s more, higher or lower elasticity will have bad impact on your strength and accuracy. Hence, it is necessary for a professional player to select a proper and accurate Flex value.

How to select the right stick Flex value ?

Generally speaking, the Flex value should be half of your body weight. If you weigh 40 kilograms (154 pounds), you can select a stick with Flex value of 77 pounds— half of 154 pounds. If you are very strong or a little weak, you can adjust the Flex value:

If you are very strong and know well about the correct shot skills, the Flex value should be +5;

If you use more slap shot, the Flex value should be plus 5; you are not strong enough, the Flex value should be -5;

If you use more snap shot and wrist shot, the Flex value should be -5.

If you weigh 70 kilograms (154 pounds) and are strong enough and use more slap shot, you should select Flex from 77. 10 should be added according to the above methods, and then you should select a stick with Flex value of 87. Please note that Flex is a personal preference, and the above methods can only help you select a more suitable Flex value.

Flex value of sticks can be changed.

Let’s say the Flex value of a stick is 95. If the stick is shortened, the hardness of the stick will be higher while the stick gets shorter (according to the chart below). It needs mentioning that the length of the stick after being shortened should fit your height. You should not ignore the stick height and your body height just in order to increase the Flex value of the stick.