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3 Great Gift Ideas for Your Squash Dad

Looking for gift ideas for your squash-playing Dad? Look no further. We see squash dads in our store every day of the week. We know what they are looking at. We know what they want but are afraid to buy for themselves.


SQUASH BAGS

Most of the racquet bags made today are multi-sport bags. They are designed to work for tennis, squash, badminton and/or any other racquet sport you can name.

Squash dads, though, spend a lot of time looking at squash-specific bags that have features that are highly specific to squash, including lined eyewear compartments, vented shoe compartments and external ball pouches for squash balls. These are features that you will not find in general purpose racquet bags.


SQUASH EYEWEAR

Most of the racquet bags made today are multi-sport bags. They are designed to work for tennis, squash, badminton and/or any other racquet sport you can name.

Squash dads, though, spend a lot of time looking at squash-specific bags that have features that are highly specific to squash, including lined eyewear compartments, vented shoe compartments and external ball pouches for squash balls. These are features that you will not find in general purpose racquet bags.


BABOLAT SQUASH SHOES

Few squash players realize that squash shoes wear out on the inside first. Long before shoes show signs of wear on the outside, they are completely shot on the inside. Shoes should be replaced every 500 kilometres or so. Since a squash match typically sees players moving three to five kilometers per hour of game time, guys who play twice a week should be replacing their shoes at least once a year.

Babolat ™ now makes the best overall quality indoor court shoe for squash.


GIFT CERTIFICATES

Still not sure what you get your squash dad for Christmas? Think about a gift certificate

We sell gift certificates in $25.00 denominations. They never expire.

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Customer Advisory – Yonex BG66

Yonex BG66 Badminton String
Yonex BG66 Badminton String
CUSTOMER ADVISORY – YONEX BG66

[Calgary] Racquet Network has issued a Customer Advisory regarding Yonex ™ BG66 badminton string following a series of complaints from customers regarding durability.

There are three strings in the series — BG66, BG66 ULTIMAX and BG66 POWER — all of which were created by Yonex to serve customers who want more power. All three strings are exceptionally thin. BG66, the original, is just 0.66 mm thick while the others are even thinner at 0.65 mm.

“Over the past six months, more than a dozen customers using BG66 have returned re-strung racquets to our Calgary store complaining about premature breakage,” says Racquet’s Network’s owner Brent Johner. “Several of these customers claimed that the strings broke the first time they used them.”

A recent inquiry to Yonex Canada resulted in this response by email: “BG66U [BG66 ULTIMAX] is definitely not for everyone. Its a very thin gauge for high response. It will break sooner than other strings.”

“In this particular case,” says Johner, “the issue appears to be one of customer education. Therefore we will be taking steps to ensure that customers purchasing BG66 are aware of the string’s design and intended use.”

Strings in the BG66 series appear to be designed for use with feather shuttlecocks. Because they are exceptionally thin, these strings should not be used with nylon shuttles. Contact with the skirts of nylon shuttles during smashes may nick the string causing it to break at that moment or during a later stroke.

The BG66 series also does not appear to be suitable for strong players who smash a lot. Rather, it is a thin string intended to help juniors, women and smaller players who need additional help from their string bed.

“Every single complaint we have had about this string over the past six months has come from an adult male,” notes Johner. “At this point it appears to us to be a classic case of ‘power greed’.”

Men tend to be attracted to anything that promises more power, notes Johner, even though they don’t actually need it. In this case, strong male players appear to be overpowering the structural integrity of this string causing it to fail.

Effective immediately, Racquet Network is advising adult male badminton players using nylon shuttles to stay away from the BG66 series. However, staff will still be recommending the string to juniors and women who genuinely need more powerful string beds.

About Customer Advisories

Racquet Network is committed to maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. Products that do not meet high standards of customer satisfaction are removed from store shelves and company websites.

Customer Advisories are issued following a series of customer complaints. Sometimes the source of these complaints is improper usage of products by customers. Sometimes it is a genuine decline in the quality of the product.

Products for which Racquet Network has issued Customer Advisories are monitored closely for 12 months. Those that continue to fail to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction are discontinued.

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Racquet Network Adds Tachikara

volleyballRacquet Network is proud to announce the addition of Tachikara ™ to our brand family.

In addition to offering Calgary’s largest selection of volleyball and court shoes, Racquet Network is now offering Tachikara volleyballs, kneepads and other accessories.

“We expanded our shoe selection going into the fall season, this year,” says owner Brent Johner. “We added 50 new models of court shoes for men, women and juniors, many of which were in the volleyball category. At the same time we added volleyball knee pads. So it made sense for us to go one extra step and support those product lines with Tachikara volleyball balls.”

Tachikara is a Japanese company, founded in 1915, that makes balls and other sports equipment. They are best known for their volleyballs. They make the official ball of NAIA women’s volleyball, and of Volleyball Canada, China, Europe, Oceania, and Africa.

Racquet Network is Calgary’s largest racquet sports specialty store. In addition to carrying racquets and accessories, the company offers the largest selection of court shoes in the city. For that reason, they already have a large and loyal volleyball clientele.

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Sabine Sets Serve Record

SABINE LISICKI18 JUNE 2015

Sabine Lisicki (Yonex ™ VCORE Tour F 97, Yonex POLYTOUR SPIN) has a new record to her name. The fastest-serving woman on Earth made history once again on June 17th, 2015 at the Aegon Classic Birmingham by hitting off an astounding 27 service aces in the tournament’s second round. Along with breaking this new record, Sabine also advanced into the next round.

“Yeess…with my 27 aces I’ve got another record. Too bad I missed the 131 mph serve by a few inches,” commented the 25-year-old German on her Twitter account. Sabine broke this record with the new Yonex VCORE Tour F 97. Featuring aerodynamic fins carved into the inner edge of the frame head, the VCORE Tour F grants a 6% increase in serve speed, allowing you to serve like the record-breaking German. The previous WTA record for most service aces was 24 from Serena Williams.

On July 29th 2014, Sabine made history by hitting a serve that clocked in at 131 mph (210.8 kmh) at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, California, becoming the fastest-serving female player in the world.

A video of Sabine’s 27 aces can be found on the official WTA website here: http://bit.ly/1JZrvkt

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Yonex Anti-Vibration Technology

REDUCED VIBRATIONEvery racquet manufacturer deals with the issue of unwanted and potentially unhealthy tennis racquet vibrations in a slightly different way. However, most create a break in the kinetic chain somewhere between the string bed and the player’s arm in order to interrupt the vibrations before they get to the player’s elbow.

Babolat ™, for example, places a Cortex system above the handle and just below the throat on several of their high-end frames while Wilson ™goes even further by separating the racquet’s loop from the rest of the frame with their famous Triad technology.

The problem with this method is twofold. First, creating a physical break in the continuity of the frame creates an unpredictable flex point. Second, physical breaks in continuity can lead to a loss of racquet head feel or “touch” for some players.

With this in mind, Yonex ™ takes a different approach to vibration dampening in their Ezone Ai tennis racquets. Rather than creating a physical break in the frame’s continuity, they have adopted a variation on the “solid feel” technology built into their high-end badminton racquets.

First, Yonex places eight shockless grommets at the bottom of their tennis racquets. Then, to reduce vibrations even further, they fill the racquet handle with Quake Shut Gel. The result: a 50% reduction in vibrations compared to conventional tennis racquets.

To get an idea of how much of a difference this makes to players with tennis elbow, take a look at the video above and note the two bottles of water. The bottle on the right is experiencing fewer vibrations because it is sitting on pad made of Quake Shut Gel.

This approach to vibration dampening is not new to Yonex. All of their world class Japanese-made badminton frames feature Solid Feel Core technology which is virtually the same thing. By adapting this technology to tennis frames, Yonex has given the Yonex Ezone series of tennis racquets exceptional anti-vibration capabilities without breaking the kinetic chain and sacrificing frame stiffness.