Equipment Design/Research Project

[torchesinthedark 0]

Hey guys, I stumbled onto this board a few weeks ago, and have found it to be incredibly informative. Though I don’t play at the moment, it’s really inspiring to see this many people who are so passionate about hockey.

I am an industrial design student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and I am doing a research project looking for design opportunities in the Ice Hockey market. I was hoping that you might be able to help. On a side note, I hope I’ve posted this in the right section.

Just a little background on me, I played both ice and roller hockey growing up. For most of those years, I played travel Ice Hockey, usually at one of the higher levels available locally (my family moved a lot.). Since high school, I have continued to play roller hockey on and off, but nothing too intense. I really want to get back into it, but there is now way I will be able to until I graduate and start paying off some of these student loans.

What I would really like to do here is to start a dialogue about the current state of the hockey equipment industry. What are they doing well, and more importantly what are they doing poorly? Any advice you have would be incredibly helpful. I really appreciate your time, effort, and expertise. Here are a few questions that I have to start the conversation, but feel free to provide any other insight you have:

Is there anything you think current equipment is missing?

If you could make changes to existing equipment, what would they be and why?

What do you think has been the biggest improvement in hockey equipment in the past 5 years? 10 years?

What do you think consumers should know about equipment before making a purchase?

What do you think are the best products on the market and why?

What are the most important aspects of hockey skates?

If you could add anything to the current product market, what would it be?

What are some problems that you see in today's hockey equipment?

Again, these questions are just some ideas. I know that you know way more about the market than I can imagine, so please feel free to pass on any other insight that you may have.

On another note, I’d like to be able to paint a clearer picture of who exactly is playing hockey. Other than the basics of age and gender, education level and other interests would be extremely informative.

I really appreciate your time and effort. I know that your knowledge and insight are extremely valuable. This project will begin as research and develop into a concept product. At this point I’m not sure what the product will be, other than that it will be for Ice Hockey and probably some kind of equipment. I have some initial ideas that I will begin to develop in the next few weeks, but right now, I’m keeping an open mind. If this post/discussion goes well, I plan on keeping you updated with my progress as the semester progresses.

[JR Boucicaut 3810]

Welcome to MSH.

Quite a bit of these things that you are requesting have been covered on here. An extensive search on here will cover any information you are looking for.