Implementation of a vibration absorber for composite hockey goalie sticks

Abstract

As recently as the 2011 National Hockey League (NHL) season, all but two NHL goaltenders used wood goalie sticks, even while the trend among players was almost unanimous carbon fiber stick usage. The reason for this trend is because the goalies do not like the vibration felt by composite sticks because there is a lot of sting in the carbon fiber sticks. The design and implementation of vibration absorbers have been successful in baseball bats and field hockey sticks. Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) was conducted on a number of wood and composite sticks to identify the mode shapes and frequencies that are responsible for sting. Using a background in structural vibrations, a vibration absorber was designed to eliminate the undesirable frequencies in composite goalie sticks to improve feel for goalies. Design and validation was conducted using a series of damping tests as well as EMA to develop the vibration absorber. Before and after results were compared to see the effect of the vibration absorber. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.