The Complete Handbook of Hockey Helmets

Chapter 1: Understanding Hockey Helmets

Hockey is a collision sport, and your helmet is the only piece of equipment between the ice, a puck, a stick, a board, and your brain. This is not an abstract concept. When a forward falls and hits the back of their head at speed, the kinetic energy built up over the ice is converted to force in a fraction of a second. The modern hockey helmet is a carefully designed system of hard plastics, energy-absorbing foams, and adjustable straps whose sole purpose is to take that force and spread it out over time and a larger area, so the impact energy is absorbed by the foam and redirected around your skull, not directly into your brain tissue.

Understanding how this works forms the core of what a serious buyer or operator needs to know. The material science is less mysterious than you might suspect. A helmet shell is typically made from a thermoplastic polymer, such as ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) or polycarbonate. The shell is the first line of defense. It is rigid enough to protect against puncture from a skate blade or a stick butt-end, and it distributes the force of a blunt impact across a broad area. But the shell should not be considered the main shock absorber. That job belongs to the liner.

The liner is almost always a form of expanded foam, usually EPS (expanded polystyrene) or EPP (expanded polypropylene). These are the same kinds of energy-absorbing foams used in