Equipment: Stick flex

Maurice Del Taco

Registered User
Oct 13, 2015
586
43
Growing up with wooden sticks I never really thought about "flex". I just looked if the curve of the stick blade was to my liking and then off you go. All the wooden sticks I had access to back then had more or less the same "flex", meaning I never paid much attention to "flex".

After a very long break I was back on the ice (beer league) and I see all these new fancy sticks. You can really rip it with some of these new sticks. I see the really soft sticks have a low flex number and vice versa.

Anyways, my question is: which flex does one choose? Does a lower or higher flex number allow you to shoot harder, or what is the difference?
I'm 6'3" and 'bout 230 lbs (don't know if height and weight factors in?)
 

Goonzilla

Welcome to my house!
Feb 18, 2014
2,528
24
The rink ..too often
Bigger, stronger guy, higher flex. Mr Puniverse..lower flex recommended.

If you take a lower flex and cut the stick down, it will make it stiffer, or a higher flex, while if you take a higher flex stick and add an extension then it will reduce the flex.

That said, depends on your skill set too, lower flex is obviously whipper and less effort needed to really rip it.

Believe the flex number is the weight or force required to flex it an inch from straight. I'm 6 feet 4 and buy 102 flex exclusively, but I don't know what they end up after I stick plugs in them.
 
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puckpilot

Registered User
Oct 23, 2016
1,228
880
If you look around the standard rule of thumb for choosing a flex is 1/2 your body weight. IMHO that's probably too stiff a starting point. I'd recommend 30-40% of body weight to start off and move up or down from there.

I believe the average NHL player is around 6'1 and 200lbs, and from what I've heard, most players use flexes between 85 and 100.

BUT I read somewhere that players in the NHL are going down to whippier sticks. An extreme example today is Johnny Gaudreau using a 55flex stick and in the past Brett Hull using a 62flex stick. Phil Kessel is said to use a 70flex stick and Ovechkin who's about your size uses an 85flex, which is a little more than 1/3 his body weight.

How hard you shoot for the most part is dependant on the individual's skill and strength. A higher flex stick will have the potential to shoot harder, but if you're not strong enough to flex properly it, it doesn't matter. Imagine the stick as a slingshot. If you don't have the strength to draw back the sling and load energy into the rubber bands, then it's not going shoot anything.

And as stated Brett Hull has shown that you can shoot plenty hard with a lower flex stick if you have the proper technique.

One of the ways you can test if a stick is too stiff or too whippy is to take a stick and put yourself in a shooting stance. You should be able to flex the stick one inch with pretty much no effort.
 
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