Field Hockey Stick - The Modern Hook

The Modern Hook

In the mid-90s the 'hook' head style hockey stick was relaunched, this time by the former German U21 International player Thomas Kille. Bright colours, bold graphics and painted heads were introduced. Manufacturers became much more aware of the 'look' of their products and hockey sticks sold, particularly to new players, as much on colour and 'fashion' as strength and usability.

Today, across many brands, there is a choice of angle of hook upturn, 45°, 60°, 75°. A style of stick that almost no-one in Europe wanted to use in 1987, is today used almost universally; it is difficult now to find a player who is not using a hook style hockey stick and many of them have never used the 'shortie' style at all - just as many of the players of today have never played hockey on a natural grass pitch - the development of artificial surfaces has also had a significant effect on the ways in which hockey sticks are used.

The original version, the 'Hook' relied on a Patent Description that put the inner side edge of the 'toe' parallel (or nearly so) to the facing edge of the handle. The vertical height of the 'toe' was approximately 80mm (dotted line) Fig.1 and it was of almost uniform thickness with the remainder of the stickhead.

Early modification Fig.1. reduced the horizontal head length to approximate 115mm and the 'toe height' to approximately 75mm. A hockey ball is between about 71mm and 75mm in diameter (224mm - 235mm in circumference) - so that put the 'toe height' at the same height as the maximum height of the ball. This is a common feature across hook head designs today, the 'toe' generally varies in height, between the minimum and maximum height of the ball, when the handle is in a vertical position.

The next development was a hook with a 'toe' with an inner edge that sloped away from the handle by approximately 30° (a 60° angle to the ground or a 150° 'upturn'. The 'toe height' was 75mm. (Modern versions Fig.2 vary between 70mm and 75mm. in 'toe height') The horizontal length of the head was based on the length of the 'standard' one-piece short-head stick, approximately 110mm. and modern versions seem to vary between 110mm and 115mm. The mid-90s saw the introduction of the more 'open' hooks Fig.3, some at 45° and a significant increase in horizontal head length, some as much as 120mm.

New names have been coined to describe the various hook shapes but there is much confusion and overlapping of names. 'Maxi' and 'Mega' are also terms for styles of hook shape but there is no common agreement about what these terms mean outside of each 'brand' name that employs them: what one brand terms a 'midi' another calls a 'hook' but, basically, there are three types of hook. The near symmetrical 'U', a 'tight' or 'closed' toe shape, between 60° and 75° and an 'open' shape between 45°- 55°. Where the 'toe' is shorter the same toe angles are generally referred to as 'midi'