Honestly...

[Michael9 57]

http://www.hockeymonkey.com/ccm-sfvector130int.html

http://www.hockeymonkey.com/ccm-sfvector130sr.html

Since when did a tapered shaft cost as much as some OPS'?! $134.99 for a Vector 130 intermediate shaft, 149 for senior

Barely any one has used these!!! Wow... <_<

you think thats bad, in canada a sythesis shaft is 200$ and a sythesis si-core blade is 129$. While an old synergy is around 160$(depends on the shop prices, they very from 130-180 apprx.)

[t-bone 1]

So i had some beer and looked up a coupla' things. Carbon fiber ( checkered kind ) is being sold retail for $38 a yard (50" wide roll). So considering a shaft length, 3 layers of wrap, circumference of the shaft, other extremely complicated things even I can't expalin, and adjusting my calculations to account for above mentioned beer - carbon fiber costs about $20 per shaft. That includes all the oil that went into it. Resin is cheap. Wholesale cost, i can only guess is 1/2 of that.

So there goes that oil-costs-are-up theory.

Shafts cost what they cost because that is what fools like me are willing to pay for them. That and cool graphics too. So with that thought, I'll have a beer and buy me an new blade...

[Jason Harris 31]

So there goes that oil-costs-are-up theory.

The cost of OPS raised 17.3% to me last year. I saw an email that the factory sent Sweden citing the raising cost of oil playing a large part.

Maybe it is all just a myth, but the factory sets the price of the stick. If they say the price of oil has caused the prices to rise, then the buyer has three options:

1) Wait them out and hope that others are doing the same, causing the prices to lower.

2) Find a second factory and hope the quality remains.

3) Pay the increased price and chock it up to higher oil costs.

[hockeyherb 1]

It's not just the raw materials either that are increasing costs for businesses. Just to get all of the materials to their factories costs more because transportation costs more, and packaging costs more especially if plastic. And if the company has a union they're probably demanding more money for the workers cuz it costs them more to drive to work - and health care costs are WAAAAY UP everywhere too so that can also be part of the price increases.

Just another data point that our government's published inflation rate is a bunch of baloney that they massage. But I'll save the rest of this diatribe for a more relevant blog.

And one other thing about hockey equipment costs - I think the outlay on R&D and promotions must be going up every year as well. As there are fewer and bigger companies in the business they all have to spend more, more, more to sign the biggest stars and develop cutting edge products just to keep up with the other guys.

[ctaz 0]

Makes me glad I bought a 2 extra shafts in past 2 months. Haven't broken my first one yet, but I don't trust companies to be making the same gear I like when I need it again. So just a simple stockpile, now watch I'll go in a month or so and they'll be the same price or less.