With well-established companies continuously releasing the same products with minor tweaks every year while adding a sequential number to the name, I think it’s important to highlight a company that constantly releases new innovations and isn’t afraid to push the limits of what is possible, ECD Lacrosse.
From new materials like graphene used in the Rebel head, to FlexForm and Diamond plastics used in the DNA head, ECD Lacrosse has been one of the industry leaders in lacrosse product advancement. They have perfected their Diamond plastic in the newly released Ion head and are taking their material wizardry into the protective industry with their newest product to be released on November 10th.
While ECD Lacrosse has released secondary models like the Mirage 2 and numerous iterations of their well-known carbon shafts, we can still applaud their consistent commitment to innovation. This took place most recently in the newly released Ion head and soon to be released Echo Arm Pads.
The Ion is the final culmination of Project Beta which involved trying to innovative older heads with newer materials. However to my delight, they didn’t stop there and now have combined their tested and perfect Diamond plastic with a newly designed head which is in my opinion one of their best yet. From what has been shown of the head so far, it can be determined that the head will create a very well-defined pocket depth area given that it has one of the smallest angles between the top of and bottom sidewalls offset point compared to other heads on the market. This can be easily seen in the sticks of pros that have been using it like Jay Carlson and Josh Byrne.
The Echo Arm Pads are a brand-new product from the boys over at ECD Lacrosse. Greg and friends weren’t afraid to step into the protective industry with some new technology of their own as well. For as long as I’ve played lacrosse, the top-of-the-line elbow pads that garnered the most protection came with a fairly standard design of a hard-plastic cup at the elbow with similar material shields above and below the cup. The only true difference between most padding is how the user tightens it to their elbow.
ECD Lacrosse has ushered in a new style of fully protective padding with their new material that Greg says will harden on impact. With this new padding, they are able to create a more sleeve-like design that is much easier to keep tight to the arm. This eliminates the chance of creating pinch points between pads, as well as eliminating the hard-plastic cup that can be prone to cracking and bending.
So how could this impact the rest of the lacrosse market? We can look at how after STX released their popular RZR gloves, prototypes began popping up from companies like Maverik and Nike implementing the tightly cut foam padding on the fingers similar to the RZR gloves. It’s very likely that in the coming months we will see some prototypes from other companies trying to formulate their own hardening material for elbow pads or even a clear plastic head in an attempt to compete with ECD Lacrosse.
With the new technology they are putting into them, I can nearly guarantee the Echo Arm Pads will be the next hot topic piece of lacrosse equipment since the RZR gloves were released. When a product is innovative and successful, other companies will try to replicate it. Sometimes it will become the industry standard much like the Brine Edge becoming the first offset head. None of this can happen without one company taking a leap and thinking outside the realm of sequential product releases like ECD Lacrosse has been doing for years now.
