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Back To The Future 2: More Lacrosse Gear

Yesterday, I came up with a few ideas for the next generation of custom lacrosse gear.  Since I’m not the only one with ideas, it makes sense to share some of our readers suggestions received via comment, email and Twitter.

We’ve seen carbon fiber before but it’s usually just a pattern on a helmet or jersey.  It’s not the real thing.  Harrow makes graphite and carbon fiber lacrosse shafts (and complete sticks!) but so far the tech has been limited to those two arenas.  Well as carbon fiber technologies continue to improve and costs go down, we could definitely see a bump in its practical application in all sports.

Cleats are obvious.  So obvious that Nike, the all knowing gear heads that they are, have crafted these fine, limited edition (only 2000 made) carbon fiber soccer boots.  We know a guy in Thailand who knows a guy in Japan… yatta, yatta.  Our reader says they are VERY light and stiff.  It’s only a matter of time before Warrior makes super high end cleats like this.  I can feel it.

OH.
MY.
GOD.

Our readers also brought up GUN METAL (all caps was them) and metal flake as the next generation of chroming tech.  I seem to remember someone doing a gun metal lacrosse mock up somewhere before… oh yeah!  And I think a certain D1 team tried that last year… hmm.

It's rainy so they look shiny. They aren't.

Metal flake is also little bit newer of an idea but don’t think it hasn’t been done already as well. Harvard rocked marroon metal flake helmets last year and they shone nicely in the sun.

Spicy Warrior Metal Flake marroon helmets for the Crimson. Crimson helmets. Fine.

The next step will be getting a couple of colors in there.  Imagine Duke with white, blue and black metal flake helmets. That would be truly excellent.  Then they’d also only need one lid and could send the rest to me.

Duke in these helmets would be snazzy to the max.

Reebok has already experimented with a metal flake inspired cover material for gloves and padding.  Right now the fabric seems to release a rainbow sparkle effect but I’m sure that can be modified.

Shiny New New. And no urban camo either!

It certainly seems like we are moving to more shiny products at times, but I wouldn’t discount the gun metal idea either.  I think it will be used but more in the sense of a “flat” or matte coloration.  That could even make all white helmets cool again!  Think about it:  Matte white shell with a metal flake wite chin and visor?  That would be subtle.  And all kinds of awesome.  Even 412 might like it.

Plaid has also been presented as a possible future trend.  Now while I think we may see more and more plaid used in the lax world, I don’t know that it is the future all by itself but it may be a part of something bigger and that is sublimation.

There's a little plaid in there... We want more!

We’ve seen plaid sublimated shorts and shooters.  In fact, we’ve seen a ton of them.  What we haven’t seen is sublimated covering for gloves and pads.  The Madras gloves I proposed yesterday would be tough if they were made out of lot of different individual pieces of fabric, but if the covering material were sublimated with 10 different colors quicker production would be an immediate result.  Custom designs would take over and teams like Cuse could remove the tramp stamp from their uniforms and put it right on their gloves.  Could be pretty cool.

There is a lot more out there so keep thinking!  Manufacturers read this website.  So this could be your chance to shape the future!  Carpe Diem! Also Caveat Emptor.  There, we’re covered.

(Photos courtesy: Specialist Paints, Lax.com, Inside Lacrosse)