HISTORY OF JUGE
During his long career Lasse
Oksanen has witnessed the developement of ice hockey equipments. The
neck was the Achilles heel, so to say, till now for the otherwise well
padded players. The speed and intensity of the games have increased and
more accidents happen each year. Lasse Oksanen and ice hockey coach Kari
Viitalahti without knowing from one another had both ran into serious
accidents caused by a skate blade on the throat region.
Year 1996 the two hardened hockey veterans met and decided to act as no
"sound" throat protectors were available. Research and development
started from the scratch and took several years. Finding a suitable material
proved challenging at the same time numerous prototypes of a new guard
were made. At one point the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland came
and joined the project well under way as they noticed how high quality
innovation was being done. As a result of several years of continuous
research and development finally in the beginning of the year 2003 there
was a small patch of fabric, which passed the demanding slash tests. The
new throat protector passed also passed the demands of Finnish Institute
of Occupational Health and most importantly the requests of the pro players
testing the guard.
The structure of the guard is very challenging and thus it took some time
till it was possible to manufacture this high quality Throat Protector
in a larger scale. Year 2005 the Juge-Slash-Proof Throat Protector was
first time on the shop shelves.
January 2006 Juge-Slash-Proof Neck guard received international recognition
at the worlds largest sports fair ISPO in BrandNew Awards Competition.
The ISPO was held in Munich. |
