Trav4
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Hey guys, Trav4 here. So today I’m putting a cap on my Buttendz sentry grip coverage . If you’ve been following the content you know that I’ve fallen in love with this sentry grip from the moment I got it at the end of November but with that being said I’ve still got my criticisms.
First Impressions
So Buttendz is a grip company based out of Buffalo, New York started by Rob LaLonda and Kevin Lonergan. I’ve become good buddies with Rob after exchanging messages and working on some content together and gotten a really good feel for what Buttendz is all about. They started the early stages of Buttendz back in 2009 and they’ve been doing player grips since 2013 and recently added a goalie grip at the end of 2016. They are calling this the Sentry grip and it was designed in Collaboration with Conn Smythe Trophy winner and 2 time cup champ Jonathan Quick. Rob and Kev were lucky enough to get their hands on one of Quickie’s knobs through Rob’s connection to him from when he played with Quickie in the ECHL. It’s basically an over sized knob with their signature buttendz tiling texture around the handle. The tiling is just a texture on the outside to give you traction and control when handling the puck. The entire grip is made of all rubber materials. Here is a video of a game of Sauce I played against Rob LaLonde from Buttendz, hopefully this gives you an idea of what the grip can help me to do in regards to play ability and saucing the biscuit.
Application Process
So lets talk about applying the grip. So the application process was pretty simple. you basically spray the “buttendz lube” as i’m calling it, and that comes with every grip. You spray it on the inside of the grip and on the outside of the shaft of the stick. Sadly I went a little to crazy with the lube and got a bunch on hands in it so it made the application process at that point a struggle because it makes things very slippery but when it dries it sticks kinda like gorilla glue but that was my own fault. After you get it on, you just adjust it, set it and forget it.
Performance
So from a performance standpoint I couldn’t be happy. Now I’m not sure if it’s just a great mix between the Ax Suede Quattro+ palm in my 1s blocker, the lightness and flex of the 1s stick I’m using, and the textures on the grip but regardless I couldn’t be happy. Whether it’s simply stopping the puck behind the net and placing it in an ideal spot for the defensemen to pickup, firing a saucy breakout pass, clearing it high and hard off the glass or trying to go for the long bomb stretch pass to the far blue line, I have never felt better. I’ve never had more control, more comfort and more confidence puck handling since I’ve gotten this grip. If you take a look at most of the highlights in this 1S stick review, a lot of them I don’t think I’d be able to do without the sentry grip.
Durability
Durability wise, now I was expecting this thing to last maybe a month or 2 and then peel off or something along those lines. This is my first experience with a grip so I wasn’t sure what to expect but to the surprise of a lot of people, myself and Rob included. After basically an entire season junior hockey (games, practices and more) there were a few scratches and a bunch of puck marks but thats about it. A decent amount of discolouration from use over the course of the season but I’m still waiting to see what its going to take for this grip to actually show some decent signs of wear.
Value
Now for value, this grip retails for $29.99 US plus shipping and handling and that’ll run you about $35, and even with the horrible exchange rate of the US to canadian dollar. it’ll run you $47 Canadian as of today April 17th 2017. Now you’re probably going to run away at the through of spending $50 on a stick grip when you could spend a few bucks on a roll of tape. Now I’ve always been a grip tape user on the shaft. and for 1 full tape job that would run me 1 roll of white tape and 1 roll of grip tape. so about $8 after taxes here in Winnipeg. So after about 6 tape jobs you’ve already spent the same amount of money as you would on the grip and for myself personally, I hate taping my stick. I find its a pain in the ass when Im heading to the rink after working a full day or running around doing errands all day and taping my stick is the last thing I want to do cause I’ll have to go to the local sports shop and buy the tape or go out of my way to redo it and that 15 minutes plus the time to go buy the tape may not seem like much but when you got a million and one things to do, it makes a world of a difference.
On top of that this grip has lasted me 4 1/2 full months at this point which is probably about 5-6 tape jobs right now. Right there I got the same dollar value but with better performance and less hassle since the grip is a 1 time, set it and forget it process. You can remove the grip and use it on another stick if your stick breaks but luckily my 1s stick (knock on wood) hasn’t broke yet so I haven’t had the opportunity to test that part out.
Custom Options
Now I’d love to see some custom colour options, more grip options (Price or Holtby style, etc) or even one day where you can send in your stick and Buttendz can replicate that tape job into a grip for you but as of right now the colour coding process as well as the R&D to create those types of custom modded grips isn’t realistic and not options as of this point in time.
Verdict
So what the verdict. Well this is the 1st and only grip I’ve ever tried but so far its got top notch value, top notch durability and my puck handling has never felt better in my opinion. For all these reason I’m going to give the Buttendz sentry grip a 9.5/10 score. If my 1s stick broke and re-applying it is as easy as it says on the Buttendz website and the custom options then we’d be talking a full 10/10 but that hasn’t happened so I’m giving it the almost perfect 9.5/10 score since those are 2 minor details that haven’t changed my satisfaction with this grip.
So guys thats todays review of the Sentry grip from Buttendz, let me know what do you think. Have you got this grip, do you like, do you hate it. Whatever it may be let me know on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube all @ Trav4oilers. Also if you’re interested in a sentry grip or any grip from Buttendz, you can use the promo code “getchasome” for 10% off of your purchase. I want to thank you a lot for reading this written review of the Buttendz sentry grip, check me out on Youtube for more video reviews like this. Here is the video review to this article for those of you interested.
