Condoms make hockey sticks stronger

Condoms are being used to give strength to hockey sticks.

RK Sports, the Jalandhar-based manufacturer of hockey stick brand "Rakshak", which was used even in the latest hit movie Chake de India, have used condoms for strengthening hockey sticks and already sold over a lakh such hockey sticks to its customers, including Indian team players.

The hook is the most important part of the stick as it is used to strike the ball. Seven pieces of mulberry wood are bound together, boiled, dried, glued and bent on a machine to make the hook. It then goes through several processes, including sawing and polishing, before the handle is added to it.

"Earlier, a plastic net used to be pasted on the front surface of the hook to prevent it from splitting after a few games. But once the net came out, the stick could not be repaired," Sanjay Kohli, owner of RK Sports, said.

"The in-house research and development, it was decided to use condoms on the hook and it clicked and delivered tremendous results," he said.

Earlier many sticks had to be discarded at the manufacturing stage because the net would not dry properly or would fail to grip the hook, he said adding that he has already applied for patent of new technique of increasing life to the hook using condoms. The condom gripped the wood much better than the nets, he said.

"It sounded absurd and even embarrassing to use condoms in the manufacture of sports goods," he said. "But I had to take a decision quickly, for a lot of expensive mulberry wood was going waste. It's been a wise decision."

In a lighter vein, he narrated an incidence which brought severe embarrassment for him and said "the shopkeeper from whom he bought the condoms became suspicious, thinking a brothel had opened in the neighbourhood'

"One of my employees used to go to the shop daily to buy condoms. One day he came running back to tell me the shopkeeper had demanded to be told what he was doing with the condoms," Kohli said.