rocket hockey

[fatwabbit 93]

anyone heard of these frames before?

http://www.rockethockey.com/frames.html

[MDE3 0]

Cannot say I have seen them before.....I hate to be negative on something I have not actually seen, but....I just cannot imagine that arrangement being as strong as a regular solid through axle. Maybe I am missing something....It looks like the two outer shafts are spring loaded inside the center spacer, and that the two axle ends slide inside the spacer when you squeeze them. I imagine that there would be some deflection at the center, which would increase over time with use. And also what holds the bearings tight so that the axle spacer and inner races are basically locked up..as with any standard axle arrangement..unless there are some sort of fasteners? But they say no "tools"... If the bearing is just free floating, it will try to spin on the shaft instead of internally.

[Jim A 4]

they have been around since 99/'00 or so I think..i remember seeing them at the LPH show when I was doing a write up for IHC

Haven't seen it in years, but when at the show it made a lot more sense after Peter was able to show it to us firsthand, can't speak on them from a performance perspective though

[blazinfun07 0]

If your intrested I have a brand new set of the rocket frames, NEVER been used or mounted...Love them when they first came out. They are very tough frames and will defiantly outlast the skates you put them on...

[thunderbirds_are_go 0]

I was ref'ing a game a few year ago in which a guy had a pair. At one point he went down and one of the wheels popped out. Of course he had to have wheels the same colour as the puck...

[phantomowner27 20]

Just wondering if anyone has heard anything about the company lately. seems like a decent product but have never seen it anywhere.

[sdcopp 1]

I'm going to wild a guess at this point and say Mission's patent will preclude them from ever doing business again since it is a Hi-Lo setup

[kovalchuk71 212]

But Mission does not own the patent to the Hi-Lo

[sdcopp 1]

they have for a few yrs now as they bought it from the man who was allowing free use. CCM/RBK didn't create the Tri-Di on a whim, they had to. NBH didn't slap a 78 on the back on a whim, they had to. Every Mission frame has a patent number on it now, and it's the Hi-Lo patent

edit: it's patent #6,276,696, and the claim of the patent if for a frame with the the first and second wheel as one size, the third and fourth as one size, with the third and fourth being larger than the first and second. It also has a claim on the old Labeda Sensor setup.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6276696-claims.html

it is what it is. Tour went bigger and back to flat, CCM scrambled a made the Tri-Di, NBH used a legal loophole, and Red Star, Rocket and many other companies had to flat out quit making frames. Soloman quit making freestyle skates since they were using the Hi-Lo design and I'm sure it caught up with them.

[TheBert 0]

Interesting story. So Red Star nor anyone else ever bothered to take out a patent until Mission came along?

[sdcopp 1]

Interesting story. So Red Star nor anyone else ever bothered to take out a patent until Mission came along?

The Jim Wong listed in the link is the inventor. No one until Mission bothered to offer him any money for the rights for it I suppose. Tour is on a little bit longer cycle for new models, so they had time to come up with the Hummer, which I believe Chad Siebel said they were headed that way anyway. NBH had a legal team work around the issue with a "rockered" 78mm wheel that just happened to be a normal Hi-Lo if an 80mm was placed in the back. CCM had to halt production of the Bandits I believe, so that year some came out with a normal Hi-Lo before they quit shipping and came up with the Tri-Di.

I'm really surprised Labeda didn't pick it up as they were one of if not the first to create any sort of Hi-Lo frame. I'm not sure if they were pre-dated by Ultimate Racing frames who did a 76-76-80-80-80 speed frame for small footed skaters, but Labeda made it for a decade before the patent.

edit: two things.

Thinking about this wants to make me thank Mission for buying the rights. Without that happening we would still live in a world of two choices: Hi-Lo or old school flat 76 frames. Look at all the differentiated options now, each with benefits and drawbacks

Second, an interesting point I just remembered. If Nexed had succeeded and stayed in hockey, I believe I remember that they could still use the 72-72-80-80 setup on their angles frames since it was A. a design patent and B. there's no language in the Hi-Lo patent itself covering angled wheels, just the perpendicular axled frames. I could be wrong, but I do believe that's the case