Hockey stick
A blade for a hockey stick which can readily absorb impact from the puck, and can allow the user to feel the puck on the blade in contrast to conventional carbon fiber blades. The blade can include a blade member integrally formed of composite material having discontinuous fibers bonded within thermosetting resin. The blade member can have a blade periphery surrounding a central blade region. The central blade region can have a plurality of openings arranged in a pattern to form series of elongate criss crossing ribs that extend between and connect different sides of the blade periphery to each other. The fibers in the blade periphery can be in a generally jumbled orientation, and the fibers in the central blade region can be positioned within the ribs in a manner wherein each rib contains a plurality of fibers that substantially extend in said each rib's elongate direction.
1. A mold for molding a blade for a hockey stick comprising;
a) a first mold half having a first blade periphery cavity half surrounding a first central region; and
b) a second mold half having a second blade periphery cavity half surrounding a second central region, at least one of the first and second central regions having a plurality of raised protrusions arranged in a pattern, the first and second mold halves for joining together under pressure for compression molding prepregnated composite material, the first and second mold halves combining to form a completed blade periphery mold cavity surrounding a completed central region in which the plurality of the raised protrusions arranged in the pattern form a series of criss crossing cavities that extend between and connect different sides of the completed blade periphery mold cavity to each other, the raised protrusions configured for substantially aligning and molding a plurality of fibers in the composite material with the elongate direction of the criss crossing cavities while the fibers remain unaligned in the completed blade periphery mold cavity.
2. The mold of claim 1 in which the first central region has a plurality of first raised protrusions arranged in a first pattern and the second central region has a plurality of second raised protrusions arranged in a second pattern, the plurality of the first and second raised protrusions in the first and second patterns for respectively aligning with each other.
3. The mold of claim 2 in which the protrusions are diamond shaped.
4. The mold of claim 3 in which the protrusions are oriented at an angle.
5. The mold of claim 4 in which the protrusions are arranged along axes and are evenly spaced apart from each other.
6. The mold of claim 1 in which the protrusions are configured for substantially aligning said plurality of fibers in the composite material that have a length of about 1-3 inches, to form a plurality of openings in a pattern and a series of elongate criss crossing ribs that extend between and connect different sides of a blade periphy of a blade member that surrounds a central blade region, said plurality of fibers substantially extending in said ribs' elongate direction.
7. The mold of claim 6 in which the fibers in the composite material are selected from the group consisting of carbon fiber, glass fiber and aramid fiber.
8. The mold of claim 6 in which the protrusions are configured for forming the plurality of openings in the central blade region of blade member to have about 33% to 63% open area.