Sports Product Review

The utmost in portability and fun comes from our friends at Rage Cage, (www.ragecage.com). Rage Cage for lacrosse and Rage Cage for hockey mean you can have a high-quality net wherever you have a spot to play. All Rage Cage goals are one-piece collapsible units which setup in seconds, for easy transportation and storage.

My son and his buddies on the street have a roller hockey game at the end of the cul-de-sac every day after school. Prior to owning the Rage Cage a couple kids had cheap nets around a PVC pipe frame, and they hardly ever went out and played. They’ve taken a new passion for the sport in large part because the Rage Cage hockey net gives them true-to-life action. Because the net is made of heavy-duty steel, and thus is somewhat weighty, they’ve even devised a couple ingenious methods of transporting it down the street and back. Sometimes they use a skateboard to push it back and forth, other times one kid will lift the folded net and another will push him on his skates up to the garage. Once inside, its compact design means it only takes up about as much room as a child’s bike.

The Rage Cage is the hockey and lacrosse equivalent of the portable home basketball goal. And soccer is coming soon. No longer do kids need to go up to the school fields or the community center to play. Now, instead of taking your game somewhere because of the available equipment, you get to bring the equipment where you want to play.

Source: Rage Cage

Since our original review of CoachDeck (A Perfect Practice is in the Cards – January 11, 2007), much has happened with this nifty little product. Most notably, once only for baseball, CoachDeck (www.coachdeck.com), now has a soccer version with drills created by former professional coach and player, Guy Newman. CoachDeck is building an online “Extras” page with a vision of ultimately be the one-stop online resource for all volunteer coaches. This page will offer additional drills, tips, practice plans, documents and advice as well as a wealth of special offers and discounts from merchants. Hundreds of youth sports leagues in soccer, baseball and softball have chosen to make CoachDeck part of their league’s training curriculum and soon CoachDeck will offer their product for other sports such as football, basketball, and hockey as well.

Every year, millions of people volunteer to step up and coach their son or daughter’s recreational sports teams, (often because no one else was willing), but frequently they’re scared to death. They imagine they’ll show up at the first practice all the other parents will be standing off to the side criticizing what a terrible job they’re doing. CoachDeck gives these folks a shot in the arm of confidence because now they know when they’re on the field everything they’ll be doing is legitimate and fundamentally sound.

CoachDeck is portable and the drills are succinct and fun to use. It is the ideal solution for the inexperienced rookie coach who needs a game plan, the veteran who’d like some new ideas or even the backyard parent. Having a CoachDeck is like having a professional coach help out at every practice.

Source: CoachDeck

Need a high-quality, low cost resource for soccer balls, volleyballs, handballs or rugby balls? Want to do a cool promotion with logo soccer balls, or mini balls? Event Sports (www.eventsports.com) deserves a look. Manufacturers of everything to do with the sports above, as well as rugby, sala, (futsol), basketball and much more, we found Event Sports to be responsive, eager-to-please, and high-quality.

In addition to balls, they make a line of top-notch goalie gloves, shinguards, uniforms, and other accessories that are guaranteed to please. Azad is the company’s owner and he will handle your questions and order personally, with the care of a small operation, but the quality of one much larger. Want something custom-made? Chances are they can do it for you – that’s their specialty.

Event Sports is geared up to provide all the equipment you need to play your favorite sports. It’s up to you to provide the game.

Source: Event Sports

In 2007, Little League Baseball made one of the most fundamental changes in history to their rules when they implemented the new pitch count regulations. Prior to last year, league rules stipulated that pitchers in Little League could pitch a maximum of six innings per week. Issues of concern for players’ safety arose when, within those six innings, kids would sometimes reach pitch counts of 100 pitches or more. Little League looked at the situation and determined that it would make more sense to limit the number of pitches a child could throw in a given day, rather than the number of innings. Thus the new pitch count rule went into effect, limiting pitchers ages 11-12 to a maximum of 85 pitches on one game. Days rest requirements were also added at 20, 40 and 60 pitches in a game.

So the obvious consequence of this rule change involves tracking each player’s pitches. Coaches need to know not only their own player’s pitch count, but the opponent’s as well. There have traditionally been several options available for this tracking. Many leagues ask a volunteer to act alongside the “Official Scorer” and keep track of both teams’ pitches with pencil and paper. While this has been somewhat successful in the first year of the new rule, there are downsides. Often, getting enough people to volunteer is a challenge. If a volunteer is found, both managers must then rely on this person to be accurate and diligent. In a community recreational baseball game it is very easy to get distracted by children, pets, neighbors coming by to say hello, and other diversions. It is not uncommon for the pitch count to be imprecise and inadvertently cause coaches to make player-personnel decisions based on faulty information. Plus, with this method, coaches must constantly stop the game and ask for a pitch count to determine how many more pitches a player has left.

Also available are manual, hand-held tally counters. While these are inexpensive, coaches must hold these counters in their hands, and must have two – one for their pitcher and for the opponent’s. Hand-held digital counters that track two distinct numbers are on the market, but again, must be held in the hand, which is cumbersome and means they are frequently lost or forgotten at home.

Now, there is a solution that everyone involved with baseball – and any sport where points are scored – will love. The PitchCount Watch (www.pitchcountwatch.com) combines a digital, dual tally-counter with a timepiece, a stopwatch and date/time/alarm function within a convenient and attractive sports watch, all for about the same price as the one-trick digital tally counters. Because this is a good-looking watch that you’d be happy to wear year-round, you won’t ever again show up at your game and realize you’ve forgotten or misplaced your pitch counting device. Because it chimes at 20, 40, 60 and 85, you’ll never risk passing an important rules threshold with your pitcher.

The PitchCount Watch is designed to be easy to use. Unlike many watches that offer confusing buttons and demand intricate sequences to maneuver, the PitchCount Watch was made so that the top two buttons, (corresponding with the pitch counts for Home and Visitor) are independent in their function of advancing or resetting the tally. Because the watch offers a stopwatch, a coach can use the watch at practice as well. And don’t just think of it for baseball. Anyone wishing to carry a mini-scoreboard on their wrist for basketball, soccer, golf or other sports will love the device.

Whether you’ve got a vested interest in keeping tabs on your player’s (or your opponent’s players) pitches, or just want a way to keep tabs on your partner’s shots on the links, the PitchCount watch is a handy tool to ensure that no matter where you go or what you do, you’ll always know what time it is and you’ll always know the score.

Source: PitchCount Watch

It’s so nice when something works as advertised. A week ago I heard my nine year-old daughter crying downstairs. She’d been out practicing in the backyard with her new soccer ball. She kicked one too high and it went over the fence. That would be nothing to cry over, but it struck the neighbor’s palm tree and punctured on a sharp frond. Her new ball, which she’d had less than a week, was ruined. The only thing to do was throw it away.

Or not. I got a Ball Doctor from Unique Sports, (www.uniquesports.us) and decided to give it a try. The website says, “seals leaks and punctures in all valve inflatable balls without a bladder. Just insert syringe in ball valve and depress plunger. Pump up pressure and bounce ball vigorously. It is fixed for continued play.”

It works. In less than the time it took to tear open the package I’d injected the goo into her ball, re-inflated it and we no longer heard the hissing from the puncture. The ball is as good as new.

Next time you have a football, basketball, soccer or volleyball that won’t hold air, don’t give up on it—rush it to the doctor. One painless shot is all you'll need.

Source: Unique Sports