Let’s Talk tape
Friction Tape:
Protects the blade of the stick and helps to increase the feel of pucks as their skills increase. The white paper on the blade shows the puck clearly and helps your kid learn to move the puck. Black tape is often used to camouflage a puck, which makes it easier for the teammates or the goalie on the other side to see them. The butt-end is a good place to use tape with fun patterns. Never use hockey tape to secure a blade or handle
Clear Tape:
The clear tape holds the socks in place. Clear tape should not be used to cover the sticks or be attached to their jerseys.
Why do you tape a hockey stick?
Hockey tape helps protect a hockey players blade from wearing out and gives a good grip on your stick. The tape at the blade can also keep the ice and moisture at bay. It also impedes the puck from sticking out of the surface. Use hockey tape a poly-cotton fabric mixture with extended adhesion properties that can be purchased at ant hockey or sports store. The colour of the tape is up to you but that is your personal preference.
pictures of the best hockey stick tape jobs
” how to tape a hockey stick”
This tape job is exceptional in covering the whole blade. It allows the player to control the puck during stickhandling and spotting. The downside could be that it uses more hockey tape relative to some other systems. Depending on your goals or scoring techniques, this style might be your best choice. It consists of a heel-to-toe style that leaves a small piece of heel and toes exposed.
Start with your hockey tape in the middle of the blade, continue up to the toe of the hockey blade, and wrap it completely. The great thing about this blade tape job is that it uses less tape than other taping jobs. It can also greatly benefit players who take mostly quick wrist shots from the toe of their blade. The downside would be that it uses less tape. This tape job leaves the back half of your blade not protected, which in turn could create potential damage to it.
Starting just past the center of the blade and completing five wraps around the blade, moving towards the toe. This should mean that the center point of your blade tape job will be in the middle of the blade. The Five Strand is the quickest and easiest to complete and does not use a lot of tape. The downside to that is that it leaves most of the blade not protected as well, both on the toe and heel.
Here is another classic hockey tape job. Just like the ‘The Classic”, The Sock starts at the heel, and proceeds heel-to-toe all the way to the toe, covering it entirely. The great thing about ‘The Sock’ is that your blade stays fully protected from heel to toe. You will have easy consistent control of the puck anywhere on your blade. This method does use the most tape out of any and can take the longest to complete as well.
How do I tape a hockey stick handle or butt end?
One of the most universal styles is a basic small knob. Most hockey players stop when their pinkie’s finger restfully covers the knob. The common lengths of tape handles vary from 4 to 10 inches. At this point, some users like to add grip tape to the handle, which adds a new texture that helps preserve the palms of your gloves. Some players enjoy large knobs near the upper hand with lots of tape wrapped around, some prefer little or no knob, some favour candy cane grip and some prefer stick grip like a roller. Cut the tape as the knob hits the desired size.
Taping for added stick and puck control
Hockey Players tape their hockey sticks to increase control of stick and puck. Taping up the hand can improve a hockey player’s ability to grasp the hockey stick. The contact between the taped surface makes the playing surface even easier to move the blade. Wax or mink oil can help the player avoid snow or ice in the tape. The wax layer can also allow for more friction between the blade and puck. These differences can be the difference between the puck spinning into the side of the net or landing in the glove. After completing tapping their hockey stick some players paint their stick with stick wax or oil.
Should I use white or black stick tape?
Some people say black stick tape can help disguise your hockey puck. Others say such isn’t the case. On top of shaft or stick knob white is a fairly universal selection. Black stick tape can stain your gloves some people say black dye can damage palm materials while I have not personally witnessed or tested either. Get white for less hassle. So go with choices and we’ll get no different overall. Really your stick will get more trouble when the goaltender concentrates directly on his blade and you lose the puck. If the puck rests on your blade it’s easier for the goalkeeper to concentrate on your body language.
How do I remove hockey stick tape?
At some point, your tape job will need to be redone. How often you decide to do it is all your personal preference. Some hockey players will retape their hockey stick blade before every game, then some will do only do a fresh tape job every few months. The rule typically is if there is any big part of your blade showing from the tape getting cut by a skate, you will want to repair and retape it. You need to retape it if the tape at the bottom of the blade is worn down where you can start to see the hockey blade through it.
Romove the tape
After you remove the tape, there will be some tape residue left over on the hockey stick. The way to get rid of this would be to get a bucket and fill it with warm water then, pour a little bit of dish soap into it. Let the area of the stick with the residue on it sit there for around a minute or two then take it out, and carefully rub off the residue with a scrub sponge and cloth. You could also heat the residue using a blow dryer and then scrape it off of the hockey stick. If you do not want to scrape it off, you can also use the blow-drying method and wipe the residue off with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol or some other natural oil.
What kind of tape job do the pro hockey players use?
Players are known for tinkering with their equipment a lot, especially their sticks.
Whether it’s trying different curves, flexes, brands or lengths all players experiment a lot and find what they are comfortable with. A unique part of a player’s setup is their tape job. Most common, the differences you see are in the tape job. Taping the hockey stick can be summed up by taping the whole toe or not and how much toward the heel the tape goes.
There are a select few in hockey that wrap their hockey stick in a unique way.
Even if it’s not every game, some players like to experiment with different tape jobs to break a slump or just to try something new. Apparently, The Great One known as “Wayne Gretzky” was one of those players. If you look through some old pictures of Wayne Gretzky, you’ll see unique styles that he used – including one with a single strip of black tape at the heel of the blade.
This might be the most different and unique tape job ever seen.
