Sticks shatter for players sometimes at the worst times

to have the best sticks in the world.

“I’d be lying if I said I don’t notice, especially when a stick blows up and doesn’t perform when a player has an opportunity to score or make a key play,” Bauer brand manager Tyson Teplitsky. “It hurts a little bit that they’re frustrated with the stick in that moment in time and we obviously want our sticks to perform, but guys realize it is part of the game.”

Some players, such Kane, who uses and promotes Bauer sticks, have endorsement deals to use a certain brand. NHL players can choose the sticks they want to use and their teams buy them. It is not uncommon for players without endorsement deals to switch from one brand to the next, trying to find a piece of equipment that might feel like a difference-maker on the ice.

“I know some guys have deals with certain companies, a brand of stick, things like that, but I think it’s just comfort for everyone,” said Rust, who uses a CCM stick after playing with CCM, Bauer and Easton at Notre Dame. “So many things you can do with your stick: the flex, the lie of your blade, the curve of your blade, height, all this stuff. It’s trial and error.”

Years ago, Jim Easton gave Wayne Gretzky a stick with an aluminum shaft in 1989, according to the Great One’s book, “99: Stories of the Game.” He loved it and made the material popular in sticks.

By the mid-1990s, composite blades were introduced and by the turn of the century, one-piece composite sticks become the go-to equipment for the world’s best players and amateurs willing to pay hundreds of dollars for one. When NHL players choose not to use certain sticks they ordered or have moved onto another custom-made model, they are sold by teams to Pro Stock Hockey, an Illinois-based company that makes them available to the public.

Even when a player is loyal to a certain brand and has found a groove with stick specifications, he may go through a stick every game even if there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with it. NHL teams turn those lightly used sticks into sales, making them available for fans to buy at games at merchandise stands.

Penguins defenseman Ian Cole estimates he goes through between 50 and 70 sticks in a season and says he uses Warriors.

“Every brand is different. Every stick is different,” he said. “Every batch is different it seems like.”

Some shattered sticks end up in the hands of fans, too, instead of landfills. Requip’d, a company with offices in the U.S. and Canada, says it has recycled nearly 50,000-plus sticks and repurposed them into grill utensils, picture frames, pingpong paddles and more that it sells. The company has partnerships with about 80 teams, including 22 in the NHL, to turn their shattered sticks into things to sell.

“When we see a stick break from a partner club, we have a pretty good idea it’s coming our way,” said Requip’d owner John Ufland said.

Kane almost broke his tradition of using a new stick in every game last year when he had a hat trick, and an assist, to reach the 100-point mark against Boston.

“My stick felt good in warmups and it was my 88th stick of the year,” said Kane, who wears No. 88.