Hockey Brands That Rock!

Hockey brands of today are becoming less easy to distinguish from one another.  Why would this be true if you still see the big names out there?  The reason is because most hockey equipment is now under one roof.  The names may be the same, but the ownership is not.  Yeah that's right, you thought you were buying CCM skates, but you really are buying Reebok skates.  As Reebok now owns CCM.  It's all under one roof as I said earlier.  Now obviously, for sales purposes, they try and keep the styles seperate.  You'll find a certain type of Reebok skate and a certain type of CCM skate.  Your money though is going to go to the same company.  You think its just  Reebok, think again.  More and more companies have merged or are buying one another out.  Lets take a look at a few of them.

Reebok

I already mentioned Reebok, but lets take a look at their hockey gear lineup a little closer.  Their main priority in roller hockey skates are their pump series.  The 10k is considered their top of the line skate.  Now, they also own CCM.  Take note that they don't have a CCM 10k or pump skate.  They have a different type of hockey skate called the Vector.  They also look much different.

Bauer

Everyone knows about Bauer hockey.  What they might not know is that Bauer has owned the Mission brand for a little while now.  As with Reebok and CCM, Bauer and Mission share two different skate types.  Bauers top of the line roller hockey skate is the Vapor RX:60.  It's a very stiff and expensive skate most likely ranging upwards of $600.  Mission's top of the line skate is the Axiom T9 which is close to Vapor price.  I would like to note that Bauer has actually gone and adopted some of the Mission skate's features on their Vapor series.  I'm not sure if Reebok has done the same for their hockey equipment.