There’s a discussion about the S17 on Modsquad, with a picture of the stick.  It’s very intelligently designed (no pun intended)—instead of attempting to reducing the torque on blades with arches to stiffen up the flex point, this is a stick whose geometry changes from a “box” to that of an oval, so there’s…

I only completed a semester and a half of college physics, but the concept is that when a square shape smacks into ice, converts the kinetic energy of the swing hitting the ice into potential energy by flexing, and then loads again when the stick hits the puck, there’s torsion, and so the stick actually loads twice, and since both the stick and blade flex, you lose accuracy when your stick hits the ice, and you lose accuracy again when your stick hits the puck because both the stick and blade are twisting.

The blade “opens up” and not only dissipates kinetic energy before the shot is taken, but also twists, and so you lose accuracy.  When you go to a more oval shape, you have the flat of the blade being backed up by a shape that’s much more ready to take the torsion involved and distribute it through the strands of graphite instead of twisting.  Thus, there’s less twisting of the shaft, and, theoretically, anyway, not only do the blade and shaft twist less, but they also keep some more of that energy.

Theoretically, again, that not only means that you’d have a little more energy and a little more accuracy, but, just like other graphite sticks, a “bad” shot would become a slightly better one because the more consistency you get in terms of energy transfer, energy return, and accuracy—and not only does graphite deform a little less and return a little more consistently than wood, but it also degrades at an exponentially smaller rate—so you get a better chance of making an OK shot a good one and to be able to do that between the first time you take a shot and the two thousandth time you take a shot with very little change in terms of the stick’s responsiveness or “feel” for the puck.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/21/07 at 03:48 AM ET