About Us

Our business goals

We reviewed all the hockey mask and shield products over the last ten years and felt we had a redesigned product from our initial invention in 1974 that has no equal. We abandoned our original wire design in favor of our new two pieces all polycarbonate model for a lot of reasons. We knew that the cage frame engineering needed to be strong to withstand impact, light and deliberate with foils to channel air flow to the face as you skate. We wanted to maintain our replacement lens characteristics of 100% no-fog and scratch resistance both sides of the lens yet incorporate it seamlessly into the cage instead of on top of it. We also wanted to show players that wearing a black rubber coated wire cage covering over your eyes takes away from your seeing the game in the clearest possible way. Our injection mold and special thermoforming process completes our mission of superior design combination of function and form. We wanted a product that met HECC certification as our previous combo wire and polycarbonate mask. In our A Vision Ahead poly combo mask we have accomplished our goal.

More on Bill Everett

In the brochure you can see the original half shield with attached lower portion to protect the face. This product was introduced to hockey in New England and the hockey world in 1974. This catalog was our third annual in 1976. Bill Everett played college hockey at Boston College. He grew up in Natick Massachusetts and played hockey with the Natick Comets Youth Hockey Program; New England Midget Champion- National Midget Runner-up, Junior A, at famed Mt. St.Charles Academy in Woonsocket, RI; Natick High School and Co-Captained New Prep School in Cambridge Massachusetts.During his Prep School year at New Prep before entering Boston College as a Scholarship athletic, for the renowned John "Snooks" Kelly, Bill dove to block a slap shot while playing against Brown University in Rhode Island. Wearing a team helmet he was struck by the puck on the side of the helmet and suffered a fractured skull resulting in two operations and a plate inserted in the side of his skull. His interest in developing better products to prevent head and facial injuries in hockey grew from this injury. Bill did everything possible to test and insure that his products were safe for use. He worked with leading Massachusetts Eye Surgeons devoted to injury prevention in schoolboy sports, and then onto to General Electric Labs in Pittsfield, Massachusetts for early testing of his GE Lexan shields in the 1970's. His half shields were tested by mounting the shields and firing steel projectiles from the GE air-cannon at them at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. These speeds far exceed any hockey puck shot even today, Bill wanted to insure that his early products were safe and no player would need to face the type of injury he suffered due to poorly manufactured equipment.