Youth vs Junior sticks

[puckpilot 312]

I'm hoping someone can help me with some info here.

The other day my brother asked me in regards to buying a stick for my nephew what the difference was between a youth hockey stick and a junior one. I told him I wasn't 100% sure but probably flex, and shaft and blade dimensions.

He gets back to me the next day and says he's at a store and holding Youth 40 flex Bauer 1X and a Junior 45 flex Bauer 1X and they both have the same blade and shaft dimensions, except the junior is 3 inches taller. The youth stick is $70 and the junior is $200.

At first, I thought he was mistaken and was just holding two junior sticks because I was under the impression a 40 flex stick was in the range of what a junior stick was. So today I went to check this out for myself, but at a different store, and though I couldn't find a pair of matching 1X's in the same blade pattern, I found a pair of matching Bauer 1S's in youth and junior. Sure enough from eyeing the two sticks, the shafts and blade appeared to be the same size.

Other than the price, the only other visible difference was the wrap on the blade. The junior had the rough crisscross pattern that you'd find on the intermediate and senior sticks and the youth's blade was completely smooth.

Now, there has to be a more significant difference than 3 inches and a different blade wrap to explain the extreme price difference. But I tried googling info up, and I couldn't find anything detailing what the difference between a youth and a junior stick is. Every site I go to list the youth stick as having the same specs as the junior, intermediate, and senior, which I'm not convinced is true.

Can anyone tell me what the real differences are, or are the two sticks pretty much the same?

[goalieman39 37]

1 hour ago, puckpilot said:

I'm hoping someone can help me with some info here.

The other day my brother asked me in regards to buying a stick for my nephew what the difference was between a youth hockey stick and a junior one. I told him I wasn't 100% sure but probably flex, and shaft and blade dimensions.

He gets back to me the next day and says he's at a store and holding Youth 40 flex Bauer 1X and a Junior 45 flex Bauer 1X and they both have the same blade and shaft dimensions, except the junior is 3 inches taller. The youth stick is $70 and the junior is $200.

At first, I thought he was mistaken and was just holding two junior sticks because I was under the impression a 40 flex stick was in the range of what a junior stick was. So today I went to check this out for myself, but at a different store, and though I couldn't find a pair of matching 1X's in the same blade pattern, I found a pair of matching Bauer 1S's in youth and junior. Sure enough from eyeing the two sticks, the shafts and blade appeared to be the same size.

Other than the price, the only other visible difference was the wrap on the blade. The junior had the rough crisscross pattern that you'd find on the intermediate and senior sticks and the youth's blade was completely smooth.

Now, there has to be a more significant difference than 3 inches and a different blade wrap to explain the extreme price difference. But I tried googling info up, and I couldn't find anything detailing what the difference between a youth and a junior stick is. Every site I go to list the youth stick as having the same specs as the junior, intermediate, and senior, which I'm not convinced is true.

Can anyone tell me what the real differences are, or are the two sticks pretty much the same?

There are companies out there that do real youth sticks such as Raven and Sher-Wood, however a lot of the models like the Tacks 2.0, the 1X, and the 1S are similar to a long knee hockey stick.  Are they more flexible and shorter?  Yeah maybe a little bit.  Raven actually makes a stick, with mid-kick tech that actually is a performance stick for youth players.  The general rule of thumb with sticks is that you want the stick to be half the weight of the player and about to their nose off skates.  What companies like Raven have done is make sticks with small flexes such as their 20 flex and made them smaller than traditional junior sticks in height so they don't get too stiff if they need to be cut.  For the 20 flex Raven for example, as it is geared toward kids that weigh about 40 pounds the stick is only 47" tall.  They have a ton of information about why they do what they do on their site: http://www.ravenhockey.com/

Having said this, a lot of kids at that age really aren't shooting correctly or even using their stick to flex yet, so all of the info has to be taken with a grain of salt.  Some of the youth sticks are a little smaller in terms of their girth to make it easier to grip, however that is not the case for all of them.  

[puckpilot 312]

I appreciate the response, but I'm more interested in the material build of the two sticks. My question doesn't have anything to do with performance of the stick or my nephew with said stick. It's more about dollars and cents.

Because if a youth 40 flex 1X is more or less the same stick as a junior 40 flex 1X--because on the surface level and from the bauer website it seems that way--then to me it makes sense, dollar-wise, for my brother to stick with $70 youth sticks for as long as possible before moving up to $200 juniors. 

But if, for example, the blades in the youth 1X aren't constructed with the same strength or quality, then there's my answer.

The only sliver of information I could squeeze out was a video talking with a True Hockey manager that said their youth sticks had the same construction, braided blade reinforcements etc. as their junior, intermediate, and senior level sticks. But I'm not sure if this is the case with Bauer.

[kesamj 6]

I always assumed that the main difference between Youth and Junior/INT/Senior sticks was the material(fiberglass and "lower quality" resins vs CF and "better" resins). My Son uses Easton Youths and I don't think the construction of his GX is anywhere near the same as my CX. For one, it seems like his stick is actually heavier than mine even though it's much smaller.

Interesting topic. Curious to hear more about it.

[goalieman39 37]

Sorry my answer wasn't centered.  The performance is completely different between a junior and a youth in most of the major brands.  A $70 youth stick is a long mini stick with 1X or 1S paint. 

[218hockey 49]

Not sure what you're looking at but the Bauer Y shaft and blade are smaller than the JR. So there is a big difference. And many of their JR sticks are 52 inches and 47-52 flex. A really long youth stick is 46-48". 

[puckpilot 312]

1 hour ago, 218hockey said:

Not sure what you're looking at but the Bauer Y shaft and blade are smaller than the JR. So there is a big difference. And many of their JR sticks are 52 inches and 47-52 flex. A really long youth stick is 46-48". 

That's what I thought too. But I went to a store grabbed a Bauer 1s youth and a 1s junior and compared. And the shaft and blade dimentions appear to be the same except the youth is 3 inches shorter. My bother said it's the same when he checked out the Bauer 1x sticks. Which on the surface makes them look very similar. 

[218hockey 49]

 They are not the same size. But the real difference is in the quality of materials used. As goalieman said the Youth sticks are just cheap shafts and blades. My son has snapped blades off of the youth sticks and even broke one in half. Never broke a Junior stick.

 

Youth 1N         17.5mm by 26.6mm

Junior MX3       18.65mm by 26.5mm

Junior N7000    18.5mm by 26.6mm

[qmechanic 17]

You can look into Mode Hockey sticks.  They have a video where they try to break the stick and show how much force it takes to do that.

[stljrs 5]

"About to their nose off skates".  That seems like it's going to be excessively long.  At the nose on skates is long though to allow for growth I can understand it.  Stickhandling, which is already a challenge for kids that age, will be even harder with that much stick.  I've seen kids with sticks cut up around their forehead and they can't do much of anything with the puck.

[FlyingDutchman 3]

VIDEO: How to select the right size hockey stick.