MrData

Best all-around stick is a stiff-flex Easton Aluminium with a wood blade. You can probably find that combo online for $50 tops. It's indestructible, you can snap any $400 composite twig in half with a good slash, and you probably won't outperform it on the ice (judging from your post). Plus, it's a classic twig so you'll look really cool. Go with any curve, since slashing and stick checking doesn't depend on what curve you have. Have fun!

82 flex is objectively better /s

"Innovation" in sticks is overrated. It's all about marketing. Sticks plateaued in technology 10 years ago, and everything ever since has basically been marketing buzzwords. If Sherwood doesn't succeed, it isn't because of quality or value. They have/had the best 150$ stick in the industry with the T90 Gen 2 (true A4.5 is close), and their BPM120 gloves are truly elite for the price. I think their grassroots move away from the NHL and towards rec and minor leagues was smart, and I don't know if their return to the NHL is a good move. P.S. whoever was responsible for the graphic design of the new Code V stick needs to be fired immediately.

For fun. I've messed around with all sorts of curves, flexes, kickpoints, etc. just for the hell of it. Sure, it's an expensive hobby, but it's always great to go back to a seldom-used pattern for variety's sake. When I play beer league, I do tend to stick to the tried-and-true Lidstrom, but for pickup/shinny, messing around with a Kovalev Pro or an incredibly long lie 4 twig is a great time.

Regular is nowhere near a Nexus/Jetspeed blade. It's really, really soft. Made for roller/ball hockey or Daniel Brière. I do like a dampened blade, and I've used both XS and S, but I prefer the XS. I'd say stick with the XS, or try something like a Sher-Wood T90 gen 2, Bauer 2S Pro (most dampened blade feel of any stick I've used, outside of wood), or CCM Trigger. In terms of BASE sticks, personally I find that the SuperNatural in particular feels nicely dampened with the XS blade.

Holy crap, those Franchises are perfect. Unreal. (Wouldn't be 13's, would they? Asking for a friend.)

Totally agree here - the Nexus League was an impulse buy for me, but has turned into a revelation. One of the best sticks I've ever used, and all for $150. Too bad they flew off the shelves, as you said... However, I disagree in part with your take on BASE. Yes, I may be biased, but their customization options are the best you'll find at retail, especially at that price. Also, the sticks really are high-quality, and most of the graphics are clean and classic (not a fan of the Nasty graphics though). The website is still pretty basic, but it's a hell of a lot better than the Web 1.0 website they had only a year or so ago. If they could get a visual customizer developed, it would almost certainly help with sales. Baby steps though... (Disclaimer: My profile still says "BASE Hockey", but I no longer work for them.) Agreed. The Bauer Nexus League (415g), True A5.2 (420g), and BASE Reign LT (420g) are good examples of sticks that are well-balanced and feel just right.

I've used it a couple of times and it feels great. Plays relatively whippy, but all shots are coming off nicely. Puck feel is nice too, and the balance is on point. Hard to beat at this price. Can't speak to durability yet but I haven't had any problems.

The HCS is an absolute gem and my favourite pattern. It's listed as lie 5.5, but it's actually closer to 5.0. No other company makes a lie 5 Lidstrom. The only alternative for a low lie heel curve is BASE's BH23 Drury in lie 4.75.

I second Hockey Supremacy. Never buy any stick there for less than 15% off, since they almost always have 15-20% off codes. Also, check out these Bauer Nexus League sticks for $150 online:

415g, Textreme on the blade. Handled it in store and it felt great. I would imagine this is what they provide to CHL teams that have Bauer stick deals. Thanks for the link - it's the best price I've seen for those, so I grabbed one. Plus they have the max height P92M, so it's a no brainer.

2 things that get me excited about getting new sticks: Finding classic / old-school / obscure sticks on the market Trying new, unusual, or rare patterns But yeah, the appeal of collecting sticks for its own sake has worn off, I will admit.

Yeah but #kreps4life though! (Or is that fad over now...) I wouldn't neglect the importance of aesthetics. I think the supposed weight issue is 95% psychological though - it's not a noticeable difference. Although, if we had a max height BC27 Kovalev Pro, that thing would be massive lol.

You're right about most of the "pass the savings on to you" brands that simply import Chinese sticks with lower quality control and no fancy marketing or branding - they're a dime a dozen, and while some offer a decent product (I've heard good things about ABHS), most aren't worth your time or money. However, the idea that marketing and NHL fees savings would be passed on to customers has some validity to it. It's one of the reasons why BASE can offer its top-of-the-line ~400g custom stick at $240 with no minimum order. I asked Ron Kunisaki about NHL players using BASE (there have been a couple, including Dan Hamhuis and Alexei Kovalev most notably). He told me that he didn't want to pander to pros at the expense of BASE's regular customers. When Dan Hamhuis wanted to try BASE sticks, Ron refused to send him twigs unless he went through the same fitting process that regular customers go through to determine their optimal specs. He did it, and his stick specs did change. He ended up using a regular blacked-out Nasty in a stock BC92 Lie 5 curve. The downside of this philosophy is that BASE doesn't have any NHL pros using its sticks today, and even when Hamhuis and others were using them, they were blacked out. However, we're able to sell a top-quality product at a price that other manufacturers just can't match due in part to their expenses relating to marketing, NHL branding fees, and pro endorsement contracts. I'd put our Reign LT in a blind test against any stick on the market today, and aside from subjective player preference (which is very important), I'm convinced testers would hold it at the same level as $300+ sticks. Of course though, BASE isn't just blindly shipping in no-name sticks from China, since we have manufacturing and technical expertise from Innovative and the early Warrior 'golden days', and we own our own factory. In that light, I have to give props to Sher-Wood for dropping its NHL branding and player endorsements to focus on grassroots hockey. They make a solid product at a very reasonable price, and if more manufacturers did that, players would have an even greater choice of quality equipment. Instead, you have the "big boys" like Bauer rolling out 'retail custom' sticks at $350 a pop, minimum 2, with less customization options than we offer.

Here's the Ovi Pro blog post, for more information about the new pattern: US: https://us.basehocke...kin-pro-pattern Canada: https://basehockey.c...kin-pro-pattern Stay tuned for the lie measurement; since it's a pro stock stick, we're not assuming the lie before we can measure the sample.

We've had a problem with our Ovi Pro blade sample, so BASE is offering a free customized BASE stick of your choice to anyone willing to provide an Ovi pro stock, CCM Crazy Ovi, or Warrior Kremlin stick to make the new BC08 mould. You can get it with the new BC08 Ovi Pro pattern or any other of our curves. The stick may be destroyed in the process. Send me a message if you're interested! EDIT: Thanks everyone, several people have stepped forward!

Weird, we do only offer the BC27 in lie "5.5". I put that in quotation marks because the actual lie of Kovalev's pro pattern is hard to pin down due to the wild rocker and length, so that's more of an average lie. I'm thinking that's a misprint, but I am curious to see if the blades will line up next to each other. Also, in other news: BIG NEWS! You Ovi Pro fans are finally getting some tangible progress to seek your teeth into. In the coming weeks, I'll be releasing a feature on the Ovi Pro pattern on the BASE blog, which will be accompanied with a pre-order form on the main page. If we get a pre-order of 40 one-piece sticks (or shaft and blade combos, I'll have to confirm that part), we will produce the Ovi Pro curve in both RH and LH, as a limited edition run until June 6th. The pattern will be a clone of a pro stock Ovechkin stick from his CCM days, so it should be identical to the old CCM Crazy Ovi. If we don't get to 40 pre-orders (which I think is unlikely, considering the amount of interest we've received), we'll be refunding everyone's pre-order. Think of it as new pattern crowdfunding.

I'd say get one or two good-quality shafts in your preferred flex, then stockpile Drury blades. That's usually a winning formula for people who like rarer patterns. That way, you pay less "per Drury," and an 85 flex shaft + a Drury blade is much easier to find than an 85-flex RH Drury one-piece stick. BASE makes Drury (BH23) blades in several different lies, and you can pick your blade stiffness and coating. Otherwise, there are some other manufacturers who still make replacement blades, or you can find old ones or pro stock online. Incidentally, I just tried BASE's Lie 4 Drury blade yesterday, and that was an interesting experience. Longest stick I've ever used, but I still had plenty of blade on the ice.

You can send us a blade sample to create your own pattern. However, there is a minimum order and a mould fee. No plans for expanding the SS10 line right now. It's targeted towards senior/beer league players, so we're sticking to that crowd for now.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I do talk about this with management often. If progress has been slow, it's because we're working on several interesting new projects right now. Please keep letting me know which patterns you're interested in - it gives me ammo when I bring it up in conference calls and email chains!

Looks like the Ovi is back on the table! Someone came in with an old CCM Crazy Ovi blade, and we're willing to copy it if we can get enough pre-orders. Anyone interested in a LH or RH Crazy Ovi blade or stick should message me ASAP so we can get this thing rolling. For reference:

There's a good discussion of the differences early on in this video: Ask the Fitter with Carson David

BASE Hockey offers its BM09 Modano clone in Lie 6. It's not an exact clone of the PM9 (that would be the BB09, only offered in Lie 5), but it's your best bet for a high-lie pattern you'll like.

Wow, nice specs. How did you manage to order a G3 build? Bauer's been very stingy about letting people order old builds on customs. (P.S. Let me know if you ever wanna offload one, I'd be interested.)

The legendary One95 blade. Makes you wonder why more Bauer pros don't get a One95 build instead of G3 with a One95 blade.