Verbero Dextra Pro

[Hills 712]

Special thanks to Verbero for sending me a pair of these gloves and the Vara Pro stick to test out and review.

Personal Details

Male

6'3”

210 lbs

Forward/Defence

B-D level hockey

Verbero Dextra Pro 14inch

Usage time: 3 months

Price: $130

Glove History: Mission Fuel, MF2 4 Rolls, Warrior Retro Remix Prototypes, Reebok Sty2, Sherwood N10, Verbero Dextra Pro

Initial Thoughts: I saw these advertised online and was really interested. I really like when companies try new things (example Warrior Ritual goalie equipment) and I am always for smaller manufacturers entering the market. I watched the online videos and looked at the pictures and the Dextra Pro gloves looked like a tighter fitting glove than what I am used to wearing with my primary gloves (Reebok Sty2). The mentioned mobility was something I was really excited to try and if the people in the videos work in the NHL or play pro hockey said it was protective enough I figured it was good enough for me. I contacted Verbero asking to do a review for them and then were kind enough to send me a pair and a stick to try out. During my conversations with them sizing came up and it was suggested that I go down a size to 14 inches instead of my usual 15 inch gloves as these run a bit wide and big. When I received the gloves their width and the roominess was immediately noticeable as well as the comfort and mobility right out of the box. Needless to say the anticipation to try them on was killing me.

Fit: Verbero was completely correct in saying that these gloves fit larger than most gloves. My 14 inch Sherwoods are really snug on my hand while both of my 15 inch 4 roll style gloves require me to violently shake my hands in order for them to fall off. It feels like I have to fight to keep these gloves on while playing. The fingers aren’t extremely loose but after that the gloves feel like they open up a fair bit. I feel as if I could’ve probably gone with a 13 inch glove but then I fear the cuff will be far too low for my liking. In the 14 inch Dextra Pro my fingers fit nicely lengthwise in the finger stalls and I can feel the tips of the gloves fingers but by no means am I stretching them out like I do in 13 inch Bauer 4 rolls. The odd thing about the fit is that there is no mention on the Verbero site about how loose and big these gloves fit compared to other manufacturers and if it wasn’t for my discussion with a Verbero employee I might have been wearing 15 inch gloves that would probably fall off my hands on the ice. Now some people like a really loose fitting glove but I don’t like ever feeling like I have to fight keeping a glove on while playing, and with these I have to think about it too much. 6/10

Comfort: Here is where I feel these gloves shine. The materials Verbero uses in these gloves are very unique. The plaid liner is extremely comfortable on the wrist while the entire inside of the glove is made up of an extremely soft and welcoming spandex like material that Verbero calls microfiber silk. The fingertips and stick contact points are overlaid with a “felt” material creating a thicker barrier between your stick and your fingers/palm. These gloves are absolutely the most comfortable glove I have ever worn, the only thing close is Pro Stock Easton gloves I tried on from the Buffalo Sabres. My only issue with these gloves is the felt pads and microfiber silk is so thin you can feel some vibrations to your stick, and after a long (2+ hour) ice session my fingers started to tire from the lack of dampening along the palm and fingers. 8.5/10

Weight: Thanks to my recently purchased scale I can actually give numbers to backup my opinion on the weight of equipment. These gloves come in at a respectable 318 grams (per glove). My second lightest pair behind my MF2 gloves coming in at 294 grams. With that said the minute I picked these gloves up and when I pass them around the first thing you notice is how light they are. The weight helps make you forget these gloves are even on, if it wasn’t the feeling of them sliding off during gameplay. 9/10

Mobility: This is what these gloves were made for and dexterity is in the name of them. Out of the box these are the most broken in and flexible gloves I have ever worn. They are more broken in than my gloves with years of use on them. Anyone can pick up a brand new pair of these and go out and play with confidence immediately. When I get new gloves I find I have a bit of difficulty getting my hand back onto the stick during play as unbroken in gloves are more difficult to fully open, but this was never an issue with this glove at all. The floating cuff makes wrist mobility in this glove fantastic “without” sacrificing protection. It is a great idea and I like that my wrists are always covered at all angles. The finger loops, triple break fingers, and the angled padding make the fingers flex like no other glove I have tried on. The glove really does feel like an extension of your hand in terms of finger, hand and wrist mobility. 10/10

Break-in: There really is no break-in time, they feel unbelievable out of the box. 10/10

Protection: Here is where my praise for this glove comes to a crashing halt. The really strange part is that half of the glove feels extremely protective to the point where I believe the fingers and backhand are among as protective as my tank (with shot blockers) Reebok Sty2 gloves… and yet the thumb and cuff protection is severely lacking to the point that I would not feel comfortable wearing these gloves in anything but the lowest and less serious levels of hockey.There are plastic inserts all along the backhand, fingers and outside of the index finger (minus the last piece of foam on the outside tip of the index finger). The unique angled cut of the finger breaks means the protection blocks line up perfectly when straight but still leave protection when bent without sacrificing mobility. I believe this is a fantastic design and would like to see it on more gloves. The angled finger tips also allow the fingertip protection to protrude more than straight cut blocks and is a feature on pro gloves like Alex Burrows Warriors… but with how the fingers on the Dextra Pro gloves are made the finger tips stick out farther than any glove I have worn as the finger loops just stretch outwards. This actually leaves more of my fingertip exposed when I close my hand over my stick. Another protection issue is on the outside of the pinkie where there is no foam or plastics covering the outside of your hand from a stick or puck riding up your stick. All of my other gloves have plastic inserts on that area and the Verbero has nothing. The thumb piece itself is made of foam and solid plastic and does an okay job of protecting it from slashes or pucks, but there is no hyperextension protection on the thumb which is something I would prefer. Moving up the thumb is severely lacking in protection. With a closed fist I can smash the thumb and feel noticeable discomfort and pain on the gloved thumb. When I did the ministick test this issue became even more prevalent. How the fingers can be so protective and the thumb so lacking is really strange. Next we go up to the cuff which is even worse than the thumb. The floating cuff has no plastics or modern foams (like PoronXD) and is a made up of a relatively thin layer of foam which I can easily bend in half. There are a few places behind the cuff where the only thing between your wrist and a puck or stick is about 1.5 inches of soft flexible foams. Even with upper cuff and more layers of soft foams the fist test was very noticeable painful and the ministick test was something I didn’t want to have to do in the video. Even with the floating cuff the protection is just soft thin foam without any plastics. Doing these tests actually brought physical pain to my wrist and hand and I would fear for broken bones if I actually received a 2 handed slash or blocked a hard shot there. While I like the idea of the secondary floating cuff it is so lacking in protection it is basically useless.

The reason I give this glove a 5 is because half of it is very good, and the other half is just horribly bad in the protection department. 5/10

**Note**: I contacted Verbero in terms of my worries of protection issues and I was told a more protective glove line will be coming in the future.

Durability: Here is also where I believe this glove has some issues. I have used this glove for about 3 months and the liner is already ripping apart and showing noticeable wear spots. I like the wear patches on the palm of the glove and I don’t think that will be an issue durability wise. But I noticed the liner ripping after about a weeks of use of just wearing it around the house and a few skates. The liner material seems to pull apart anywhere there are stitches and with little force you can pull it apart and tear the liner with your thumbs. I tried this on all of my other gloves and applied as much force as I physically could and all the stitching and liner stayed in tact with no visible signs of damage… that is not the case with the Verbero and the above video shows my issues. When I noticed this damage I decided to inspect the interior of the gloves more closely and found more wear spots and noticed one spot where the liner has ripped apart exposing the foams constructing the glove underneath. A picture of that is below and I never attempted to rip this apart and this wear happened though minimal usage. I do not believe this liner is strong enough for this application (which is a shame as I really like the look and the feel of it). I have found one more wear area (besides the liner) on the glove and that is with the outer nylon. Now this is to be expected eventually but I am just making note of it and in this case it is nothing major. Now while the liner might not be the biggest and most important part of the glove, after such little usage this amount of wear and tear is unacceptable. Especially when dropping $130. 3/10

**Note**: I contacted Verbero about this liner wear and showed them the 2 liner videos linked above and they said it must have been bad stitching and that they haven’t see this issue before. Well just before I wrote this review I noticed they put up pictures of a new black and red colourway for sale on their website and that glove shows the liner wear I am talking about in the production photos.

Palm: While I think this palm is extremely comfortable there are a few issues that arose while using it. I mentioned earlier of hand fatigue because of the super thin palm materials not absorbing any vibrations that go through the stick. The other issue I found was that sometimes when gripping the stick during play the felt fingertip pads ended up not being set flat on the stick and I could feel the edges of them. Something that feels unnatural to me and is a by product of using fingertip pads instead of lining all of the fingers with the felt material. The stick I used mostly with these gloves did not have grip and some of the less tacky grip sticks I didn’t have big issues with, but when using my Warrior DT1LT with their Diamond grip (which has raise silicon like ridges) I found the fingertip pads getting stuck on the ridges and getting left behind when I moved my hand up and down the shaft of the stick. When I set my hands for a shot I often found that the tips felt like they were behind my fingers since they would get caught up in the silicon ridges. This is an issue that occurs on only one type of grip I have ever used but is still an issue I feel I need to report on. While it is extremely comfortable I felt too many issues with the felt pads where I feel full finger length layer of felt would be a better solution. 6/10

Intangibles:I said I loved innovation and these gloves certainly try new things. I really like the angled finger protection and the added wear spots on the palm is a good idea. I feel like the fingertip pads aren’t the best solution but the finger loops for every finger really add to the mobility of the glove. I really like the look of the outer nylon having a shiny sparkling look and I like the rubberized Verbero text on the cuff. The fit and finish is unfortunately lacking with loose threads everywhere on the glove and the exposed foams on the cuff after the liner breaking is really unfortunate. 5/10

Conclusion: I feel that these gloves are REALLY ambitious and with that I have to give Verbero credit for trying something new and trying to break into the tough hockey equipment market. With that said I truly believe these gloves fall short on too many aspects to really be considered. I understand that the $130 price point is undercutting the big manufacturers best but frankly these gloves do not stack up to the top of the line pieces. Just for a comparison, at the time of writing these gloves are all listed at the same price or lower than the Dextra Pro gloves on the Total Hockey Website: Bauer X100, Warrior AXLT, Warrior QR Pro, Bauer APX Pro, Bauer Nexus 800, Warrior AX2, Bauer TotalOne NXG, CCM 4R Pro, Bauer Vapor Pro, Reebok HG9000, Bauer APX, Easton Pro, Warrior DT1, Easton Mako. All of these gloves offer better protection than these Verbero Dextra Pro gloves do and I would recommend them to anyone before this pair. As you can tell I am extremely disappointed in these gloves and they have been quickly relegated to extreme low level shinny gloves or street hockey gloves.

I cannot recommend these gloves. 4/10

I like the innovative palm and the micro silk is extremely comfortable and soft. The "leather" pads are good for keeping wear in check but the finger pads' edges get caught up on grippy sticks and don't always lie flat on your stick. The thinness of the palm really translates vibrations from your stick and after 1.5hour+ ice sessions my hands felt really fatigued because of it.

I really like the angled finger protection that helps seal gaps when the fingers are bent.

No outer pinkie protection. Decently thick foam protecting the outside of your hand but it could use a plastic insert.

Flex cuff is a good idea to allow lots of wrist movement without exposing your wrist. But the foams are so thin they might as well not be there, just punching your hand here leaves with immense discomfort. Decent view of the plaid liner which I was fond of aesthetically.

The wear on the liner is inexcusable. After only a few months of light use the liner is ripping apart exposing inner foams. Verbero said this was probably from a bad stitching job but the wear appears on both gloves and in numerous places. In other glove the wear isn't this bad but you can easily see the material stretching out to the point of ripping apart.

Same spot as above but on the other glove.

More bad stitching and liner damage.

First sign of wear showed up within a week of use where my wrist was making contact with the cuff. You can see other spots of the liner ripping and the seems falling out.

Another view.

Another view.

More loose ends of threads

Finally the new gloves on the Verbero website which show the liner wear. The inside cuff on the right glove you can see the liner wearing down at the seam from the get go.