New Helmets, new brand
There are a few new helmets hitting the shelves this year. Bauer’s 8000 has been a popular choice. The new Hefter is going to turn the helmet market upside down. RBK’s 8K offers a number of changes in hockey helmets as well. The question is which of these three helmets is best.
Reebok of course is the company behind RBK. While Reebok is new to hockey, they didn’t just decide to jump feet first into hockey and figure it out later. Instead they simply purchased the largest hockey company on the planet, Maska. This gave Reebok control of Jofa, CCM, Koho and a bevy of other brands that you’ve never heard of.
Appearance
The RBK 8K has the most unique look of any new lid on the market. Huge vents in the main plastic helmet shell show off the inner shell which is carbon fiber. This silver under-shell gives the appearance that Reebok stole Robby Robots head and stuffed it in the helmet, “Danger! Danger!”
Well, it doesn’t look as corny as I just made it sound. Certainly some people will like the look more than others. The 8K is a pretty decent looking helmet in my opinion. The basic model is a black outer-shell with silver carbon fiber. It also comes in Blue with Silver, and red with silver and white with black carbon fiber.
The helmet is a little wider and more bulbous than Bauer and Hefter’s entries. Still, I don’t think that most players will fail this helmet in the mirror test. It’s sad but true, hockey players are as vain as the rest of us. A helmet that doesn’t look good won’t get the nod even if it works good. Nike proved that with their Quest helmet which sold eight units to people other than Mario Lemeuix. Despite being the best helmet on the market, it was butt ugly. There’s nothing like having a butt ugly thing on your head.
Removable ear flaps are another sign of a non-ugly helmet. The 8K sports these in the preferred color of clear (OK, so clear isn’t really a color, give me a break). The chinstrap is attached via a pair of ear loops as you would typically find in most helmets today.
Design
Even more revolutionary than the appearance of the helmet is the design. RBK’s 8K utilizes the carbon fiber inner-shell to give the helmet the toughest exterior of any hockey helmet made. Carbon fiber is stronger than steel and lighter than plastic. This makes the 8K the lightest pro level helmet on the market as well as being very strong.
The lining is Expanded Poly Propylene (EPP), which is the standard material in high-end helmets. While this isn’t unique, the comfort features that the 8K employs are. EPP is a very dense material which is very similar in appearance and texture to Styrofoam. This makes for an uncomfortable shell in itself.
RBK, like all helmet makers, utilizes a comfort layer between the player’s head and the EPP foam. Since the comfort foam is much heavier than EPP, most helmets have a very sparing layer of comfort foam. RBK was able to save weight in their shell and apply a bit more comfort foam to the liner.
RBK’s 8K also has a unique fitting system. All three helmets have tool free adjustment systems. These are sliding clips which allow the player to adjust the length of the helmets. Bauer and Hefter also each use an occipital lock that secures the helmet to the occipital bone at the base of the skull by way of a strap that wraps about the head. RBK has a similar device which wraps about the head, however it doesn’t lock the helmet in the same manner.
A dial on the bottom rear of the helmet tightens a strap which adjusts the fit of the helmet all the way around the head. This is a simple to adjust alternative to the Velcro strap which Bauer and Hefter uses. In theory a simple turn of the dial will adjust the fit of the helmet. This will create a tighter side to side fit and eliminate wobble.
Fit and Comfort
The 8K is a comfortable helmet. The additional comfort foam in the helmet is the difference. I’ve actually found the shape of CCM helmets to be a pretty good match for my head. Like skates, some helmets fit better than others. Of course if Reebok hadn’t bought Maska, this helmet would have more than likely sported a CCM badge rather than RBK’s label. Thus the shape of the shell is not really a surprise.
RBK is offering this helmet in 3 different shell sizes. This sounds obvious, however some cheaper helmets have compensated for shell size with extra padding and only offered one or two shell sizes despite having several helmet sizes. The various shell sizes offer a comfortable fit and decent appearance in all sizes.
The helmet adjustment is fairly easy. It isn’t like the first generation helmets where you needed block and tackle with a draft horse and sturdy stump to adjust your helmet. It isn’t as smooth as Bauer’s entry, but it doesn’t take the Incredible Hulk to adjust either.
One major flaw in the helmet is the micro-dial adjustment. In a couple of the helmets that I looked at on the shelf, the micro-dial was already broken in the box. While in the working models the micro-dial did adjust the helmet and offer a snug fit, it seems readily apparent that this feature will fail shortly after purchase (or even before). In the broken helmets that I looked at, the dial still turned but slipped back to the loose position by itself.
On the bright side, the helmet is still comfortable without the micro-dial working. Because it is a very light helmet it feels very comfortable as well. The lightweight of the helmet is excellent.
Protection
While the weight (or more importantly lack thereof) with carbon fiber is excellent, it simply doesn’t add a lot of value to the helmet for protection. Plastic shells have more than proven themselves capable of protecting heads. Any real protection benefit of carbon fiber would be found in a full shell, not an inner-shell.
Where Carbon Fiber would shine is in its ability to better deflect blows to the head. Plastic materials are prone to more flexion than composite materials. When the shell flexes the helmet must absorb the impact and redistribute it. Since the majority of the RBK is still plastic, it doesn’t have this advantage. Thus the only advantage the Carbon Fiber actually offers is the lighter weight.
The EPP lining is a very good product. This is something that the 8K shares in common with Bauer’s 8000 (funny how they almost have the same name, huh?) Until the Hefter hits the shelves shortly, EPP will be the best material utilized in a helmet. However, Hefter’s Helmet utilizing Zorbium shows substantially better numbers in impact testing. For protection the 8K isn’t better than the high end helmets that were on the market the last few years.
Parting Thoughts
Reebok’s new lid is retailing for a little over $150. This makes it substantially more expensive than most of the helmets on the market. Call me crazy, but if you’re going to raise the price of an item by almost 100%, you better have something pretty revolutionary.
The RBK 8K hasn’t got enough to offer to justify this price. Lightweight and a slight increase in comfort isn’t enough to warrant the price tag this helmet sports in my mind. Helmets are made for protection and that is something that hockey has lagged behind other sports in for a long time. Looking at helmets from other sports, the protection in hockey helmets is woeful.
Were this helmet selling for $85 it would be a very good product. However, for this price I have to call it average. Why pay more for the same thing you can get for less? Yeah, you’ve got me there too.
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