Speak Softly and carry a Carbon Fiber Stick

For most of my (short) hockey career, I've used wooden sticks, because they're cheap and I figured I wasn't good enough for them to make a difference. Also, in roller hockey, the surface you're playing on tends to chew them up pretty fast. However, lately I've noticed that everyone from the NHL down to the working schmucks I play with has a new, snazzy, carbon-fiber Synergy stick, so I've been upgrading my arsenal.

For a while I was using a composite shaft with a reinforced wooden blade, but two games ago somebody slashed my stick so hard it popped the blade out. So to replace it, I decided that I'd take the plunge and buy the expensive stick.

I went to Power Play hockey and looked at the Synergy sticks. Tried not to have a heart attack when I saw the $200 price tag. Turned out not to be an issue since their selection of right-handed sticks was terrible, and they all had curves I found unacceptable. I went to Logitech Ice to look in their pro shop, and pretty much came up with the same result -- the only curves they had in stock were Sakic and some other guy, neither one of which is the relatively neutral curve I prefer. So I caved and got another two-piece stick, since it seems the shops carry a lot more variety in blades than they do in sticks.

Whatever it is, it seems to have worked -- tonight in the new (ahem $180) stick's first game, I scored our team's only 2 goals. Unfortunately the other team managed to score four (they are the top ranked team in our division... And we're, um, not), for a 4-2 loss. Still new-stick mojo was apparently effective. My team said I need to keep buying a new stick for every game.

Instead, I think I'm going to claim that this one is my lucky stick and so I should never replace it.