Roseville, Minnesota just became the unlikely center of the lacrosse technology universe as Epoch Lacrosse, known in the lacrosse world for their composite shaft technology, opened a 10,000 square foot research and development facility. The state of the art product testing facility is complete with CAD software enabling their lacrosse minded engineers to design, build, and test the products completely in house.
James Miceli, Principal of Epoch, believes this will supercharge their product development process, as their entire line of equipment can now be designed and tested in house, as opposed to being sent off to an external facility and getting caught up in Customs (that happened).
Miceli grew up in Long Island and played college lacrosse at Adelphi, where he won two National Championships – the guy knows lacrosse. He filled his entire staff, everyone from the sales team to the engineers with lacrosse players, giving each member of the Epoch team the knowledge and ability to go out and play with a prototype shaft, tweak it in their lab, and test it again. This has been vital, he said, as a lot has changed since their first iteration of their composite shaft.
How much technology can possibly be involved in the development of a composite shaft? A whole lot.
Currently, Epoch is promoting their Gen.6 Dragonfly shaft – intuitively, their sixth iteration from their original composite shaft. Epoch looks at their shafts on a granular level, everything from the makeup of the fibers to the resins and the angles used. If a fiber is off by a matter of a degree, he told me, this can be the difference between a stick snapping and lasting a player for multiple seasons. Miceli pointed to the military as the driver behind carbon fiber technology in athletics and believes the technology will only get stronger as time goes on.
Big players like Epoch speed the process up that much more with their product development. Epoch designs shafts that previously haven’t even been available to lacrosse players – everything from the flex of the shaft to the energy displacement are examined in their lab and product iterations have come directly from that. Epoch’s carbon fiber technology developments give players the ability to purchase a shaft that is tailor made to their playing style, versus their position. Similar to buying a hockey stick based on flex, Epoch’s own Torque Box and Reload technology maximize the energy in a player’s lacrosse stick, adjusting for flex in different areas of the stick.
Epoch has also designed their equipment to keep pace with the new style of play seen in recent years. One example Miceli turned to, was the classic styling of defensive lacrosse shafts. Historically, sticks made for defensemen have been heavy and stiff – matching the heavy handed style of defense seen in lacrosse for most of the modern era. Epoch designs their defensive shafts for the modern defensemen, strong enough to be able to take the ball away on one end of the field, but light and flexible enough to run up the field and make an offensive move. Epoch has also designed a hydrophobic, lightweight mesh – a place lacrosse companies of old hadn’t even thought to look for innovative possibilities.
“We don’t look at ourselves as a lacrosse company that focuses on design and technology,” Miceli said, “but as a design and technology company that happens to make lacrosse equipment.” He embraces competitors taking notice and introducing their composite shafts into the market and cherishes Epoch’s spot as a catalyst for innovation in the lacrosse world. At the heart of all the work at Epoch underlies a mission so strong that it is present in conversations with everyone in their organization – make the game – lacrosse as a whole – better.
The most exciting part about that for the lacrosse world? In terms of their technology, Miceli believes his team at Epoch is still on day one.