CHESTERMERE – Local resident Tim Rotheisler says the he can repair your broken hockey stick to it’s original form. He can’t tell you exactly how he does it, but he says it doesn’t matter, because once you get your stick back in your hands, you’ll forget all about it.
Rotheisler recently got involved with Integral Hockey Stick Repair, a company founded by Randy Langille of British Columbia, who with his skills from building aircraft components, applied advanced laminating processes to repairing hockey sticks.
Rotheisler said that he discovered Integral while checking things out online, because he had always been interested in finding a way to successfully repair hockey sticks.
“There was nothing out there that I had confidence in before this,” he said. “I saw Randy’s process and saw the results and I was quite amazed that he was able to get the stick back to its original condition.”
Rotheisler said that he had three main reasons for being interested enough in the process to become a franchisee. The first was that he simply hopes to put broken sticks back into the hands of players, the second was to keep the carbon composite sticks out of landfills, and finally, to mitigate the costs involved with playing hockey.
“The costs of have a child in hockey are always increasing, especially when you get to the bantam age and above,” he said. “Once your kid gets to a certain level, you’re buying sticks that are between $200 and $300 each, which are not always an easy thing to replace if they break.
“So, the process give people an option to get the stick repaired to it’s original form, and save themselves some money.”
Rotheisler said that this repair process is not available anywhere else in the Calgary area. He said that because patents are still pending, he can’t talk specifically about how the sticks are fixed. He merely said that it is a hollow body repair done from the inside, leaving little to no visual evidence of the repair on the outside.
“When it’s done, you get your stick back with no compromise to the weight, balance, flexibility or kick-point,” he said.
Rotheisler said that high performance hockey players, such as players from the Port Albini Bulldogs, use the process frequently to have their sticks repaired. He said that it is a testimonial in itself that the team has used some repaired sticks not only in regular season games, but in playoff games as well.
“They’ve proven to be valuable to teams because it saves them an enormous amount of money on sticks, and the players get to continue playing with a stick they enjoyed using,” he said.
Rotheisler has fixed around 20 sticks since starting out last month, doing all of the repairs out of his shop in his basement. He said he hopes find a location in the city in the future.
He charges $55 to fix a stick that is broken in the shaft, and said that he is able to fix blades if need be. His time frame is about three days for a repair. ”I hope that the process gets accepted among hockey players, parents and teams, and that people will find that they can save a lot of money,” he said.
For more information, visit integralhockeynecalgary.com, call Tim at 403-235-1072 or e-mail him at trotheisler@integralhockey.com.
