TORONTO - A Canadian-designed stick-swinging robot could be the answer to the plague of broken hockey sticks that frequently litter the ice during NHL games.
A team of students and a professor at the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario hope their invention will revolutionize the game by leading to stronger sticks, less prone to break at critical moments.
It could also save money for parents of young hockey players, who spring for expensive sticks that break prematurely.
The invention is a two-handed contraption that can grab a hockey stick and repeatedly fire off blistering slapshots as fast as 180 kilometres per hour.
It can replicate the different ways players take slapshots and give hockey sticks a thorough torture test.
Professor John McPhee, the chief scientist behind the new company Hockey Robotics, says he got the idea for the puck-smacking robot about five years ago, while researching golf technology.
The research team went through a few prototype designs before building their full-scale robot in the last year.
The company is prepping for its official launch in July, when it plans to begin offering its services testing hockey sticks.
