Grow the Game®

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Lacrosse Helmet Versus Sledghammer!

I recently sent my brother a new pair of lacrosse gloves and a pristine CPX-R helmet by Cascade Lacrosse. In payment for all the gear I sent down to New Orleans, my engineer brother thought it would be a great idea to crush his old helmet with a sledge hammer. Welcome to our least scientific equipment review ever!

Usually, I’d never support smashing a perfectly good lacrosse helmet, as it is a tool to Grow The Game, but as you can see below, this helmet had been all but used up, was on its last legs, and simply needed to be put down. It was quick, but was it painless?

Helmet Data:

The helmet in question is (was) a Cascade CPX, which has been in frequent use since 2002. The helmet spent most if its time in New Orleans and has a lot of dry rot from being stored outside. Similar deterioration can be seen on the very rusty chrome face mask. Basically, it’s a used up, decade old lacrosse helmet and no one should have to wear it anymore. Considering it lived in NOLA, I’m actually surprised it has lasted this long!

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The helmet (left) when it was still in use.

Helmet Meets Sledgehammer:

The first hit seemed to bounce off pretty well, and I’m glad my brother didn’t swing for the fences. The safety goggles were a good idea, but I was a little worried he’d hit the helmet and then have the sledgehammer bounce back and wail him the face. Thankfully for my brother, that didn’t happen.

The stryrofoam beneath the plastic got cracked, but overall the damage was really not that bad. Subsequent hits started cracking the plastic of the helmet which was definitely aided by the dry rot. Plastic locations on the helmet started eventually tearing. Seemed like the rust on the facemask didn’t matter at all, and that was reassuring.

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The face mask actually looks fine! Well, structure-wise anyway.

End Result:

Even old helmets are pretty good, but dry rot makes a difference! Rusty facemasks don’t seem to matter at all. In the end, it is probably best to replace helmets pretty frequently, but this Cascade definitely fared much better than one might have thought!

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Sledgehammer. Ouch.
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Could have been MUCH worse!

Sorry for the complete lack of scientific basis… but I figured you’d want to see this no matter what, and it sure was fun, wasn’t it? Thanks to my brother, Lee, and his wife, Lauren, for smashing, and filming, this whole experiment! Who knew a decade old helmet can still take that kind of abuse!?