Why is it so damned difficult to find nylon or hard plastic replacement hockey blades for my Easton hockey shaft? I play road hockey twice a week, and a few years ago switched from “cheap wood stick with bad plastic blade” to a high-quality Easton composite hockey shaft + blade assembly. It totally improved my game, but finding replacement blades that last longer than a few weeks is incredibly frustrating.
I’ve tried several of the graphite blades, and they’re expensive and get chewed up by the pavement in short order, making road hockey more expensive than I care for.
“Cheam Sports” carried some excellent nylon replacement blades last year. They had about a dozen when I found them and I bought two. Last month the second of the two started to show some real wear so I went back to Cheam Sports. They didn’t have any in, so I asked when they expected more. The girl at the till didn’t know, but asked the manager, who explained that “those are a pain to order, I have to get them from the States” and that they “should be in in a few weeks”.
A few weeks later I checked back in. Still no replacement blades, and again the line about the hassle to order them. You’d think that if you had a product that sold out that quickly that you’d KEEP YOUR STORE STOCKED WITH IT.
I decided to fall back on the Internet and find a supplier of these (or similar) blades online. Wow, what a pain in the ass that was. The blade has no identifying marks on it, so I’ve spent the last hour googling for all manner of combinations of nylon, plastic, “replacement blade”, hockey, street… I’ve been through about a dozen different online stores and nobody seems to sell them. 1800faceoff.com has these which look right but are only available in JUNIOR size — I obviously have a senior stick — and they’re in the US, which means extra shipping costs plus having to deal with UPS wanting to charge me half again the cost of my order just to get a box through customs.
If anyone has any idea where I can get these kinds of blades I’d really appreciate hearing about it.
Taping the blade like mad might help it last a bit longer, but adds a little weight to the stick overall. http://www.eastonhockey.com has a dealer locator which has a list of places you could call up and see if they have the blades you’re looking for. As a lost resort I could search for them down here and send them you you. My brother plays with an Easton so I know we have blades available down here.
http://www.mylec.com/309.htm
Here is a nylon blade w/out the holes, will last longer than wood if you are playing on the street.