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Traditional Thursday: Miles Thompson Replica Pocket

Should we really call this type of traditional the “Miles Thompson Pocket“? He is surely not the first person to use it, and his brother, Jerome, strings it for him. It doesn’t matter. Miles is so hot right this has to be the MT2 Pocket. It just has to be!

Notre Dame vs Albany Lacrosse 2014 NCAA Quarterfinal Credit: Joe Williams

At first it just looks like a traditional pocket. Then you notice that it is a six leather traditional. And then you notice, unlike a typical six leather traditional, Miles’ version uses lace for the outer leathers on either side. Mind blown!

Want to see Miles’ 7 diamond traditional pocket up close, both front and side views? Ok! Thanks to Joe Williams at Throne of String for the photos!

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You can see how that would be awesome, right? Look at the channel! Look at the thick pad of traditional for the ball to sit on. It’s definitely the best of all tradish worlds. An impressive effort of engineering even!

Billy Nguyen strung up a replica (which I will also be doing soon!) and it came out nice! Who wants to see a tutorial?

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You don’t really need to say anything. Of course we’ll do a tutorial!

Here is Billy’s take on the process and pocket:

By now, you’ve already seen mine and Connor Wilson’s take on Jeremy Thompson’s traditional. This time I’m digging deep into Miles Thompson’s traditional pocket, specifically what he does differently and, more importantly, why.

There is a perception out there that traditional sticks do not have good hold. If you have ever seen Miles Thompson play, you will notice that he uses a traditional set up. Thanks to Throne of String, I was able to get a closer look at Miles’ pocket and string it up with Throne leather. You will immediately notice that Miles uses an extra nylon runner between the outer leather and sidewall. The extra runners are actually run through the sidewall of the head, as opposed to the scoop, kind of like a floating sidewall. The extra diamonds really help stabilize the pocket as well as tightening up the channel a bit.

More diamonds= more rigidity. Simple math.

If you’ve been following traditional Thursday, you will notice that this is similar to a 6-leather traditional pocket already. This is NOT the same technique, and the reason is spacing. Miles’ pocket essentially has larger diamonds where the ball sits and smaller diamonds on the outsides to hug the ball. This creates 2 extra rows of diamonds and the column of diamonds remains the same. The pocket is essentially spaced to string up like a 4-leather traditional pocket.

The pocket also ends abruptly higher, this was done with the intent to have space for the ball to sit freely level with the plastic. The leathers in his stick go up through the plastic at the bottom instead of going straight down. This allows the ball to sit a couple of millimeters lower.

The man knows what he is talking about!

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