Top Hockey Equipment Brands

Thousands of places across cyberspace will sell you a hockey stick, skates, or a helmet. GearGeek will simply tell you what you really need to know about that equipment — and gloves, and pants.

What do the NHL players use? Essentially, each and every one of them. Updated daily and sliced just about any way you could imagine — by gear brands, teams, positions, stat leaders. Or you can just search for an individual player.

The point is, you don’t have to listen to what a blogger spits out after play-testing a stick or two at his local rink. We’d rather you take a look at what GearGeek has determined are the most popular items across the NHL.

Here are the top five brands for each component on your equipment wish list.

Sticks

• 1. CCM: 36 percent of the league plays this 119-year-old Canadian company’s sticks, spread across 13 models. Most of that is in three sticks: The Ribcor Trigger 2 PMT, the Super Tacks 2.0 and the Ribcor Trigger ASY.
• 2. Bauer: A robust 30.5 percent, split fairly evenly between each of their product lines. The Nexus 1N leads the way at 11.2 percent.
• 3. Warrior: Alone, the NHL’s most popular stick, the Alpha QX, is played by 17.5 percent of the league. All told, Warrior models account for 23.3 percent.
• 4. Easton: 6.3 percent, most of which comes from the Stealth CX (4.5 percent).
• 5. TRUE: TRUE entered the stick market in 2000 and currently has two sticks — the A6.0 SBP and XCORE 9 — in use by 3.1 percent of the league’s players.

Gloves

• 1. CCM: 35 percent, spread over 13 models. The HG 12 and CL Pro are most popular.
• 2. Bauer: 32.8 percent, led by the most popular gloves, the Vapor 1X, grabbed by 16.2 percent of the league. Seven other models account for the rest of the total.
• 3. Warrior: 25.4 percent, owing mostly to the Covert QRL, Dynasty AX1 and Covert QR1.
• 4. Easton: 3.4 percent cobbled together from five models. The Pro is its most popular.
• 5. TRUE: As a new player in the glove market, TRUE accounts for 1.9 percent market share.

Pants

• 1. CCM: 42.3 percent
• 2. Bauer: 37.9 percent
• 3. Warrior: 18.8 percent
• 4. Easton: 0.9 percent
• 5. Reebok: 0.1 percent

Skates

• 1. Bauer: No shock that the venerable company, a skate innovator since the 1920s, dominates the market at 67.2 percent. Forty-four percent of the league is skating in either the Vapor 1X or the Supreme 1S.
• 2. CCM: 19.5 percent spread over eight models, with the Super Tacks as the most popular.
• 3. TRUE: 11.8 percent, owing solely to its highly regarded Pro Custom boots.
• 4. Reebok: 1 percent, led by the Ribcor (0.3 percent).
• 5. Graf: 0.3 percent, 2 players currently use the Ultra F 60.

Helmets

• 1. Bauer: 43.1 percent, edging out CCM for the top spot by just a few players. The Re-Akt covers the craniums of slightly more than half of Bauer’s clients.
• 2. CCM: 42.7 percent, roughly three-quarters of that in the Vector V08.
• 3. Warrior: 10.8 percent, all thanks to the Covert PX2.
• 4. Easton: 3.4 percent, all wearing the E400.
• 5. None: Reebok used to lay claim to our last spot but it's no longer being used by any NHL players.