Buying Kit
Players must have the regulation kit before they can play in official matches. See Equipment for details.
For new players the club has some of low cost 'starter kits' . These can be rented out with an option to buy. £20 deposit and £1 a day. The rental charges will be credited against the cost of buying the kit outright should you decide to take the sport up. Kits are available for all age groups up to senior. The club does not rent out skates.
Buying kit is expensive.
Buy secondhand:
This is the by far the cheapest way to acquire good kit. But it can take time to track down and may be past its best.
Look at the ForSale section of this website.
Look at the For-sale section of theSASH league magazine sold at the door.
The club will periodically hold a 'second hand stall' and invite members to bring and buy.
Ask around and find out if any one has spare kit or if any one your size has left the sport.
Try the Ebay internet auction site. There is lots of kit available and many bargains. Dont get carried away and end up buying a load of junk though!
Buy in the UK.
Probably the most expensive way of acquiring kit, but the most trouble free.
Go to SkateAttack in London if you want to try on all the kit and empty your wallet in the fastest possible time. Skate attack sell cheaper on their website than at their store. So if you are cheeky enough - try on all you want at their store and then order it online afterwards!
Go to Ultraworld if you need a local supplier - but range is limited (They don't do Mission) and they only sell to the public on Friday afternoons.
Go to the PHA lesiure stall at the League matches.
Just Hockey in the UK are not franchised by any of the major manufacturers and are free to buy stock direct from the states. This means that they can get good deals and pass the savings on to us. Thats the theory. Try them out and put them to the test. They are at Farnborough many Sundays and also have a website JUSTHOCKEY.CO.UK. They are also willing to track down specific items that you want.
Do some internet searches on UK suppliers and compare prices.
Buy in the US over the internet.
Cheap, but you have to know what you want and need to have a sizeable order to make it really worthwhile.
Sizes and fit
US shoe sizes are one more than the UK equivalent. A skate boot marked 9 will be a UK size 8. Some manufacturers boots are even bigger, you may need to go two sizes down with, say, Easton, Bauer and CCM. The only way to be sure is by trying them on. See the SIZING GUIDE.
In the US, the Minnow/PeeWee/Youth/Junior/Senior age groups are different, and younger than in the UK. If you order from the US and specify kit for PeeWees, you will get kit for toddlers! Youth/Junior means children sizes and senior is full size equipment. It is very easy to purchase kit that is too small from the US. BEWARE. Some websites have 'fitting tools', use them, but also talk (or e-mail) the company about your requirements first.
Purchasing from the web:
Some Items of kit need better fitting than others. It is suprising how the same size of equipment varies between manufacturers, makes and models. If you are considering buying over the internet, make sure you have tried on the specific item you want, as sending it back is very costly. If you do receive the wrong sized kit, or it is unsuitable, it is not too difficult to sell it within the club at the US cost. There is always someone who wants good, brand new kit at US prices.
Also remember that the United states does not have as strict consumer protection laws as we are used to. They don't have to refund your money if they state that they do not give refunds. (only credit ). And, unless you are very rich, you can forget taking any US supplier to court.
E-puck.com (www.epuck.com)
This is an excellent place to purchase kit from. I have placed about 4 orders to e-puck, and three of those went very smoothly indeed. (The forth got sent to Japan by mistake, but I'll let them off). The best way of ordering from them is to search their web site carefully, and make sure that the required sizes are available. Then make an on-line order giving credit card and delivery details. Give the order a few hours to perculate through, then give them a ring to make sure every thing is OK. Kevin will probably pick up the phone. They are in California, Remember the time difference - ring in the evening. Make sure every thing you want is in stock and ask for advice on what you are purchasing. He may have stock or be able to advice on alternative items. Make sure that you have got the sizes right - describe the age group of the player and make sure the equipment is suitable. In other words, get the benefit of internet prices, and also the advice of an interactive human!
Another benefit of E-puck, is that both the carriage and the duty payable is kept to a minimum. This makes a considerable difference to the final bill, and removes any apparent benefit from using other internet suppliers who have slightly lower prices.
Its also worth asking e-puck to better other internet suppliers prices. HockeyMonkey.com or HockeyGiant.com are other sites with good prices on offer. Get the best of both and use the prices from these websites to reduce the prices from e-puck.
These websites have some very low prices. The website is not as informative as e-puck. When you ring them to check orders, you will be lucky to get someone who knows what they are talking about. The carriage and tax bill has been significantly higher when I used these companies.
Bargains to be had:
Cheap Skates
The major skate manufacturers reduce the price of last years models when the new models come out. This means that all last years stock is being sold off at bargain prices. There are some amazing deals on skates to be had. Less than half the price of the best prices available in the UK. There are limited sizes available, but if you find some of the right size - grab them!
Why is Hockey kit so expensive in the UK? - The great Rip off.
Hockey kit is cheaper in the states than in the UK.
This is due to a number of factors.
1/ Carriage. It costs money to have goods shipped over.
2/ Duties and taxes. It costs around 15% to import goods from the states. US quoted prices do not include 'sales-tax' (VAT) whereas UK prices do.
3/ Market forces. The market is not as big in the UK and so it is difficult for UK suppliers to discount.
What you are not told
These are the reasons that you will be told by the shops. However these are not the only reasons why goods in this country are more expensive than in the states. The final price hike comes from the additional layer of distribution in this country....
Distributors.
Manufacturers in the US supply the shops directly. The shops add their margin, less any discounts and sell to the end user. Great. Every one is happy.
However, the path is not so direct in the UK. Here, the manufacturers in the US supply to UK based stocking distributors. The distributer holds stock so that shipping costs (and delays) are reduced, then adds their margin and then sells to the shops, The shops then add their margin and sell to the end user. TWO lots of sales markup before it gets to the final customer!
Many UK shops will quote supply as being ' a couple of days to arrive from our warehouse'. What this actually means is that they get on to the distributer, who ships the goods to them so that they can supply you. The shop has not had to hold any stock.
PHA leisure, Skate attack and others, get all their Easton, Loiville, Itech equipment from Ultraworld in Great Milton. They get their Mission equipment from UKHockey (formally MapleLeaf sports) the official Mission UK Distributer in Basingstoke. They are 'not allowed' to purchase their stock direct from the states and will loose their manufacturer's franchise if they do (at least, if they are found out!). Each layer of distribution is adding at least 25-35% on to the price.
The Markup trail
Imagine a typical pair of skates.
The manufacturer supplies US shops at $100 (£70).
So, the shops in the US supply to the public at $150.
The manufacture supplies UK distributors at a total cost of £100 (convenient convertion from £s to $s once taxes and carriage is included)
The distributer supplies to the shops at £150.
The shop sells them on to the end user at £210.
So the boots that cost $150 in the states, cost £210 in the UK. Also, the boots have tripled in price from the manufacturer! This is even more amazing when you consider that the actual manufacturing cost of the boots (from china or the far east) is probably less than $20.
Wouldn't it be great if manufacturers supplied direct!!
Incidentally, Ultra-world in Great Milton (Oxfordshire) open their doors on Friday Afternoons to the general public. They sell at full list price to us, the end user. In other words, they are getting their distributer markup PLUS the shop markup! Friday afternoons, they must be raking it in! They used to give discounts to local clubs, but stopped this after complaints that they were undercutting local shops (but they do still give discounts to SOME ice clubs!). But they are convenient, have lots of stock and you can try the kit on first, so they're not all that bad! (just don't ask them if they supply Mission.)
A Purchasing Tale.
HockeyKit.com
I bought some Mission Vsi skates from HockeyKit.com. This is a shop in Somerset (England) that gave us a load of water bottles with their name on them as a marketing gimmick. Their prices were very good (for the UK). I was worried about not getting quite the right size of boots if I took a chance on buying from the states. So, I paid a bit more (quite a lot more) than what I could of got from the internet, and bought from them. Actually, they supplied from the Mission distributer, not from their own stock.
The boots were OK, except that after just one hours use, the front wheel broke apart. These were the purple millennium gripper, extra-soft. Not really suitable for a 14 stone player. HockeyKit immediately gave me a complete new (different) set of wheels, without even asking for the old ones back! This was impressive. I actually like the millenium grippers, so I bought a set of the tougher 'orange' variety, which have been going strong ever since.
Free servicing
The next niggle I had, was that the chassis/front wheel was so far back that the toe of the boot kept hitting the ground on long stretches. At one of the league matches at Greenham, PHA leisure was doing a promotion of Mission gear, with a representative from Mission UK (Mapleleaf - now UKHockey). I mentioned in passing how the chassis seemed to be mis-positioned on my skates. He asked me if I had purchased them in the UK, and said that he didnt think they were right. He took them away, and returned them to me two days later, with the chassis expertly moved forward the required 1.5 cm!
Hey, this is good. Glad I bought them in the UK I thought.
Eyelets
Another traditional problem with Missions is the eyelets. Mission say that this problem was solved long ago. WRONG. The eyelets on my Missions started disintegrating within 5 months of purchase. I complained to Mission UK. They said that Mission US wont do warranty repairs on eyelet damage. Mission UK said that they cant do eyelet repairs and they couldn't get a replacement pair of VSis in my size - would I like some Mission Wicked lights as a replacement?!
Hold it there - Mission wicked lights are the most expensive boots in the Mission line-..they were offering me a pair as replacement! Naturally I said No. Wicked lights might be expensive, but they are not that good (was I mad..?)
So I went and got the eyelets replaced at Ultraworld. As the eyelets dropped out, I got Ultra world to put new ones in. On the forth visit they refused to repair them any more. (They really do not like Mission in there). So I was left with boots without anywhere for the laces.
Back to Mission. They said "we've just got a eyelet repair machine" so, happy ending, I now have brand new eyelets on my Missions, the wheels don't fall apart and the chassis is in just the right position. All care of Mission UK and the little bit extra I paid in the UK.