Our Story
ABOUT
Born in a shed
The journey started in the late 1970’s with Peter Haselhurst a young Australian Hockey player, keen surfer and tertiary physics student frustrated by his Hockey sticks continually breaking. Peter decided to experiment with fibreglass and resin systems to repair hockey sticks finding not only that the repaired sticks lasted longer but also were much stiffer so they were better to play with. They had better feel when trapping, dribbling and far better ball speed for hitting and pushing.
Peter as the budding entrepreneur was making money by fixing sticks and on-selling re-engineered sticks to players in the local Perth league with a spray-painted stencilled “Gryphon” as a signature for his work. In the early 1980’s Peter formally co-founded with teammate Richard Charlesworth, the company and brand GRYPHON with the sale of a car for working capital, a journey was undertaken to Pakistan to set in motion the business of having manufacturers make sticks the GRYPHON way.
A Dynamic Progression
The introduction of composite materials in the 90s was revolutionary for the hockey stick industry. As hockey stick manufacturers began to have access to premium composite materials that were used in the aviation industry, the construction of hockey sticks shifted significantly. The use of composite materials and the growing knowledge on the bonding process increased the quality of the final product as well as the overall weight and balance.
Early in 1990 GRYPHON engineered its first composite hockey stick made of Fibreglass, Carbon and Resin Matrix. Peter Haselhurst designed and made the first GRYPHON composite stick while visiting the stick factory in Thailand with the local workers and the machines available. Using his knowledge in physics and material Peter successfully designed multiple hockey stick lay-ups with the aim to offer a range of hockey sticks to enhance players performance and the quality of the sticks in the market. Since then, GRYPHON has worked tirelessly over the years to develop and engineer the lay-up of hockey sticks to offer a variety of power characteristics, balance points and feel.
The GRYPHON stick manufacturing began in Pakistan in 2013 and the collaboration between the factory and our team has helped to perfect the manufacturing process from the design of the lay-up to the moulding and cosmetics. For the past three decades GRYPHON sticks have been unique and unmatched in the hockey arena. The specificity of our stick diagram/lay-up guarantee GRYPHON sticks a unique feel and un precedent power. We like to say our hockey stick offer power with soul.