Penta hockey skates

greyraven8

Registered User
Dec 24, 2007
475
198
Thunder Bay, ON
Ran across these when searching for Facebook group on what skates Terry Harper had in a photo (not this one, but this has better shot of one of the skates)

23167858_10155916830614394_1494354473449113692_n.jpg


Article in Nov 1, 1975 of the Detroit Free Press.
don't have newspapers.com so here's the text taken from the OCR (may have a few mistakes). if someone has newspapers.com feel free to make further corrections.

DETROIT FREE PRESS Saturday, Nov. 1. '75.
Page 7 article text

Terry Harper unlaced his hockey skates and tossed them onto the floor in the Red Wings' dressing room. He sat in a heap, tucked in a corner just inside the door. It was the same corner that veteran defenseman Gary Bergman occupied for many seasons when he was with the Wings. But it is Terry Harper who sits there now, completely fatigued after another hard grind in practice, forced to contend with the spirit of an eager 21-year-old rookie but saddled with the body of a weary 35-year-old veteran. Terry Harper is a different kind of player than the others, though. Compared to the rest of the Wings scattered around the dressing room, peeling off their sweat-soaked uniforms, he is very different in the way he thinks, the way he acts ; everything about him, in fact... Those skates for instance. Harper uses a brand by the name of Penta. He helped developed them, helped engineer them, helped manufacture them, and now, even helps sell them. Obviously he has to do a selling job on the Wings. Nobody else on the team uses Pentas. Players like Mickey Redmond and Danny Grant use plastic-booted skates made by Lange. Jean Hamel and Walt McKech-nie wear leather skates by CCM. And Dan Maloney and Nick Libett prefer leather skates by Bauer. But Terry Harper, the newest of the Red Wings, proudly points to his Pentas and says: "Yep, they're mine." Skiing Starts Project. It was five or six years ago when he was still with the Montreal Canadiens, winning Stanley Cup championships almost every season, when Harper got an idea to develop plastic skates. "I skied quite a bit when I was with the Canadiens," he said.
I don't ski during the season. Evidently (some people??) believe skiing causes injuries. No matter. Harper skied and used plastic boots, Lange boots, if you care "I got the idea that plastic hockey skates could be made just like the ski boots," said Harper. "I went to Lange Terry Harper and got the thing rolling. Naturally we had some problems at first. But we worked out a pretty good skate." Harper and Redmond were friends during their Montreal days and Redmond was the first to test the newfangled skates during the development stages. About two years ago, however, Harper and Lange got into a contractual squabble and Harper joined forces with a new manufacturer, Penta. He certainly knows his product. He can recite figures comparing the hardness of various steel skate blades something called Rockwell hardness and he knows which materials can and cannot be used in skate construction. He knows a lot about how the game of hockey should be played, too, And he says the Wings aren't as bad off as some people think. "This team is a lot better than Los Angeles was when I went there three years ago," Harper said with a wry grin. "The Kings didn't have anyone capable of scoring 50 goals in a season like Mickey Redmond and Danny Grant. 1 hey didn't have a player who plays as hard as Nick Libett, either. They didn't have anybody to compare with Bryan Watson, nobody with as much competitiveness and desire like him. "Dan Maloney was like that. But he's on this team now." Harper Arot a Brooder Harper and Maloney were an institution in Los Angeles. With their tough, aggressive style, they put guts into the Kings and made them a playoff club. Last season, the Kings challenged the Canadiens for the Norris Division championship but ended up eight points short of the title. Harper's opening appearance on the Ice last Wednesday made a difference for the Wings, who snapped a 10-game win-less streak and won their first game of the season. With Harper in town, the Wings' defense will be improved. He plays a strong, steady game. No nonsense, no running around. His intelligence and ability to sort out and reason with problems are assets in themselves. He doesn't brood. He doesn't get overly excited. He is calm and confident. And he has the desire to win. "There's another big difference between this club and Los Angeles," he said. "A lot of the players here have been on a winning team before. They know what the pressure is when you win. There's no pressure when you lose." It's obvious the Red Wings haven't had to deal with pressure for a long time. Harper is waiting to show them how, though.

Only images other than on some Terry Harper photos are those from some old Ebay listings:
s-l225.jpg


Anyone know anything about the skates, the company, etc.?
 

Killion

Registered User
Feb 19, 2010
36,763
3,215
Cowboy Bill Flett up there with the Leafs. Just the 1 season in Toronto, 74/75 after winning the Cup with the Flyers in 74..... And these skates.... interesting, and first Ive heard of this, no recollection of that product whatsoever. They appear similar to Lange & it sounds like they were going to be launched by that company as an additional model to their existing molded plastic skate however... falling out with Harper.... he took it elsewhere.... resulting in this limited run & short lived product.... which look to be very very similar to the Lange's & ski boot technology with the removable liner, plastic shell.

Cant find a thing about them on-line, like who actually made them.... and I'm left wondering, guessing.... that it might have been Jofa in Sweden. They were owned by Volvo SA from 73/85, Volvo Penta the marine division, commercial & pleasurecraft engines & drive systems, diesel & gas, at one time produced outboards.... Why they would name through subsidiary Jofa a new skate concept "Penta" (unless a play on frozen water?) no idea but Volvo a pretty innovative & progressive firm so its possible.... Possible Harper had a deal with another ski boot mfg like Alpina or Nordica in Italy.... cant imagine Daoust, CCM or Bauer turning those things out. Maybe he had the shell & liner made by a ski boot mfg in Europe, blades in Canada or the US, then assembled by Bauer or whomever.... odd there isnt at least something more about this on the interwebz....

As an aside, some trivia, Harper was actually Bobby Orr's favorite NHL player when Bobby was in Junior though Harper not known for being the greatest skater to put it mildly.... indeed, Ken Dryden tells a story of how the Merry Prankster Guy Lapointe, Harper notoriously late for Practices & always in rush to be out there on time lest he be fined.... Pointu one time diabolically knifed Harpers skate laces just enough so that he wouldnt notice it when putting them on & tying them up in a hurry, but that as soon as he hit the ice for the first drill of laps he was totally & completely on his ankles, waddling around like a duck on a frozen pond.... and according to Dryden "with Terry it didnt matter, you couldnt tell the difference".... then there was the time then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visited the Habs dressing room for a meet & greet.... Lapointe greasing up his palm with a massive globbing of Vaseline moments before shaking his hand.... on & on & on.... Pointu. :naughty:
 
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