Gretzky's sticks: from Koho to Titan to Easton (2024)

If yougrew up playing hockey and watching Wayne Gretzky, chances are at some point you probably had one of those white Titan hockey sticks the Great One used with the Edmonton Oilers. Or maybe you had the silver two-piece Easton stick he switched to with the Los Angeles Kings.

But as a youngster, Gretzky used a Koho stick. We learned that recently when an anonymous bidder paid $38,838 at an auction managed by Heritage Auctions for the Koho stick Gretzky used to score the 1,000th goal of his life as a 13-year-old with the Brantford Turkstra Lumber squad. Read more about that stick by clicking here.

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Former Canadien Patrice Brisebois was one of the last NHL players to use a wooden stick, refusing to give up his trusty Sher-Wood.

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Below is a column I wrote about wooden sticks and theclassic Sher-Wood P.M.P. 5030 model back in 2008:

(Canadian Press file photo)

PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE ON APRIL 20, 2008

STU COWAN
GAZETTE SPORTS EDITOR

There’s no doubt that hockey players have a special relationship with their sticks, whether it’s Canadiens defenceman Patrice Brisebois saying “I put my heart and my Sher-Wood into it” after scoring the winning goal in Game 2 of the playoff series against Boston, or Bruins forward Marc Savard talking to his stick on the bench before scoring the overtime winner in Game 3.

On an episode of Coach’s Corner last week, Don Cherry even instructed young players to take their sticks into their bedrooms “and love them.”

It’s a wonderful relationship any Canadian kid who grew up debating whether to use white or black tape on the blade of their beloved Sher-Wood P.M.P. 5030 can relate to.

And if you still remember using the old P.M.P. 5030 model as a kid, and are now a hockey parent spending hundreds of dollars on one-piece composite sticks, you’ll be interested to know that Brisebois is still using a wooden Sher-Wood.

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“He prefers wood sticks … maybe he’s an oldtimer at his age (37), but we’re pretty happy that he still uses the wood stick,” Denis Drolet, the president and CEO of Sherwood-Drolet, said Thursday in a telephone interview from his office in Sherbrooke.

“Patrice has been using that stick for maybe 90 per cent of his career with us,” added Drolet, whose father, Léopold, founded the stick company in 1949. “He tried some other products, but he always came back with that stick.”

Brisebois uses a Sher-Wood 9950 SOP model, which sells for about $45. It has a wooden blade and fibreglass handle reinforced with carbon fibre.

“He put all the weight he had on the stick (for the winning slapshot in Game 2) and maybe with a composite stick it could have broken,” Drolet said. “We see a lot of broken composite sticks, for sure.”

But composite sticks have taken over the NHL. Sher-Wood has gotten into that market also with its RM19 model, used by the Canadiens’ Tomas Plekanec, and Drolet estimates there are only about 10 NHL players, including Ottawa’s Jason Spezza, still using wooden Sher-Woods.

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But back in the late 1970s, Drolet says more than 200 NHLers were using the P.M.P. 5030 model, which is why youngsters from that era – like me – all wanted that stick. Drolet says more than 6 million P.M.P. 5030s have been made since the stick first hit the market in 1976.

The P.M.P. 5030 was an amazing stick – for about five or 10 games. Then the bottom of the blade would split, it would get waterlogged and you’d be begging your parents for another one.

I’m sure there were a lot of basem*nts and garages in Canada filled with used P.M.P. 5030s with split and waterlogged blades.

“Unfortunately, the water would come in the bottom of the blade and then the wood would start to split,” Drolet admitted.

“But you were paying maybe $20, and today you’re paying $150 (for a composite stick). You can buy a lot of 5030s today for about $30, and maybe the blade will open, but it’s still a good stick. The shaft was very good. The blade in composite is more resistant than the old white-ash wood that we had in the past. But it depends on what you like for feeling and what you want to pay. ”

And it also depends on what youngsters see the NHL stars using. If you’re around my age (44), you probably tried the Titan TPM model Wayne Gretzky used at the beginning of his NHL career.

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It wasn’t nearly as good a stick as the P.M.P. 5030 – at least in my opinion – but the plastic strip along the bottom of the blade kept the water out and made it almost unbreakable, which made hockey parents happy. And it sure worked well for The Great One.

Today’s kids all want to use the one-piece composite sticks they see the NHLers using, which is why Louis Fortin, the vice-president of purchasing for Sports Gilbert Rousseau, says wooden sticks will eventually disappear, just like wooden tennis racquets.

“Kids all want one-piece sticks, and adults more and more also,” Fortin said. “The wood stick business is getting weaker and weaker every year, that’s for sure. Our sales in wood sticks is probably declining about 20 per cent every year. My composite business is growing approximately 35 per cent every year.”

While top-of-the-line composite sticks sell for as much as $300, Fortin noted that the price of the lower-level ones has started to drop.

“Now we have models at $39, $49, $59, so even the adult is tempted to try it,” he said.

The Bruins’ Savard uses a composite Warrior stick. On Coach’s Corner, Cherry showed a video clip of Savard sitting on the bench talking to his stick.

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“Watch him looking at his stick … I want you kids to look at him,” Cherry said.

“He loves his stick.”

Then Cherry started to get a little carried away: “He’s looking at his stick, ‘I love you, I love you,’ he’s talking. ‘I’m going to stroke you.’ …

“You kids out there … watch again … ‘I love you … I love you.’ He loves his stick. … He loves his stick. That’s the way you kids got to be.

“Now, listen you kids,” Cherry continued. “Your stick’s now in your dad’s trunk of the car, out in the garage, you should go get those sticks … those sticks cost a lot of money. I see you in the minor midgets when they come out with their spare, throw them up against the wall. I want you to be like Marc. Take it in your bedroom and love them. Besides, they cost a lot of money. As Marc said, ‘You take care of your stick; your stick will take care of you.’ ”

Cherry’s sidekick, Ron MacLean, ended the segment by saying: “I’m going to bed with my Sher-Wood tonight, for sure.”

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