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.:Buying a Lacrosse Head - A Consumer Guide:.

***Buying a head is no small matter. In most cases, your gonna be parting with nearly $100. Here's a guide for everything (or almost everything) you need to know when buying a head.***

Pocket Type

A very important option, and I think the most commonly overlooked. Most people buy a head and take whatever pocket is standard. A real player picks a pocket and then a head to go with that.

***For a complete guide to pockets, see the article Pockets: A Comprehensive Guide. If you don't feel like doing that, here's a quick rundown of the pocket types.***

Traditional

The oldest pocket type (I think). It's got its ups and downs. It has great accuracy due to the natural channel of the leathers in the center. It doesn't, however, have good ball control. Deep pockets also tend to have a lot of whip.

Mesh

By far the undisputed favorite type of pocket type on the market now, and for a good reason. Whatever variety, hard, soft, dura, whether or not it has V's or U's, mesh lacks on thing that many hybrids try to correct: it doesn't have accuracy. If it did, traditional would be nonexistant. It is extremely durable and won't shrink and expand nearly as much as traditional. It also has better ball retention.

Hybrids

These are traditional/mesh combinations that try to bring out the best of both worlds, and most of them do it rather well.

Custom

These include variations of your basic mesh or traditional pocket. They're good as well, but cost signifigantly more than a basic pocket.

Degree of Pinch

It's not in the dictionary but I couldn't come up with a better word to describe how much the head is pinched than pinchness, so don't get on my case.

Very Pinched(ball barely fits in and out near throat)

These tend to be for more advanced players, beginners and some intermediate players might find it extremely hard to catch with something this pinched. Why do they make it like that you say. Well, it gives more accuracy on release.

Medium Pinchness

Most sticks fall in this category. It is a pretty well balanced blend for your standard intermediate player and most beginners.

Broad Face(not very pinched)

Mainly beginners sticks, but some better players use them because they tend to have wider scoops, making ground ball easier.

Sidewall

This ones tricky. Some sidewalls look pretty, but won't stand up to much of a beating. Others have not so pretty designs (like the trestle I-beam on the excalibur and x2) but they can hold up to almost anything. There really are no categories for this, as almost every stick has a unique sidewall. Look at the sidewall carefully, and see if you think it could really hold up to getting smacked around. Squeeze it. If you can squeeze areas of the plastic together, it might not bet the strongest sidewall.

Scoop

For those of you who don't know this is the thing at the end of the stick you use to scoop a ball with (hence the name).

Broad

Common on most not very much pinched sticks, this is extremely easy to scoop with. But if you have a broad scoop and broad throat stick your accuracy might suffer.

Medium

Again most sticks fit into this category. It is a good blend between the two extremes. Good for intermediate and beginner players.

Tight

In other words there isn't much there. This is on most highly pinched sticks, and are another reason why they are for advance and some intermediate players only.

Price

A crucial factor in buying a head, this is the one that swings more people than any other. Most people when they go to buy a stick have a price limit. If a candidate for a head doesn't make this limit, it's chance of getting purchased goes to about 0.

Cheap

Not many of these anymore. It's not easy to find any head, good or bad, for less than $30. And that's just unstrung. However, some models that aren't produced anymore from past years are still kickin around in some stores and can be bought pretty cheap. The ups of a cheap head is that if it breaks its not the huge disaster that it is when an expensive head breaks. The downs are they usually perform horribly and shouldn't be used by anyone. Maybe a first year beginner but that's it.

Medium Price

These are becoming less in number by the year also. They are a good balance between price and performance, although I would go for a high priced head if at all possible, since it can greatly increase performance. Most companies design 1 new medium priced stick for every 2 new high priced sticks they produce per year. Beginners and some intermediate players should use this type of stick.

Expensive

Most sticks fall into this range now. However, most expensive sticks are good sticks. Most of them are new designs every year and have some kind of new selling feature. Intermediate and advanced players should use these sticks.

Offset?

There a 2 choices in this category: offset and non-offset. Unfortunately, none of the major production companies are designing new non-offset heads.

Offset

All new sticks fall into this category. This is when the head doesn't go in a straight line if viewed from the side, the front of the head curves downward. Most of you already know the difference so I won't try to explain it any better. Anyone can use this kind of stick, but most 1st year beginners should use non-offset sticks to learn the basics, as offset heads can lead to bad habits. The head coach of the Princeton Tigers banned offset heads from his team for a season because they couldn't throw properly. The offset head gives you a harder shot too.

Non-offset

Ahh, the old school stick. This is good to play with for your first one or two years to learn the basics of throwing, shooting, etc. Some people go there whole career with a non-offset stick. They are great for faceoffs too, because your stick is closer to the ball. Syracuse's faceoff man used a Brine Oz and he won somewhere in the neighborhood of 86% of his faceoffs before moving on to play in the MLL. Nuff said.

Have any questions or comments regarding this article? Email the author.