Super Power

The STX Super Power is very much the Proton Power, only it is built to the recent throat opening specifications. The Superpower maintains the necessary 6.5″ measurement at the back of the scoop to make it “legal for both high school and college play”. Like the Proton Power the Super Power has a long look and feel to it. The offset line of the sidewall is identical to its Proton Power predecessor’s profile, doing its offsetting thing pretty far up the side, which is longer and more graduated than some, before straightening out as the wall moves up to the scoop. This feature works well to help to hold the ball inside the head.

The ball will also tend to stay in the pocket a little bit longer with this kind of overall head contour, giving potential for perhaps a little more speed on a shot, but it also makes it a little harder to control pocket whip. Like the Proton Power the Super Power has the slight forward lean or the ‘STX’ cant, as the sidewall becomes the scoop. This helps with ball release when it is time to throw and shoot.

The front view of the head makes The Superpower appear as if it is more pinched than some of the other heads in the same class, but it meets all current rule specifications. The pocket area opening is indeed longer than many heads when measured from the inside bottom of the scoop down to the foam stop at the throat. This has a visual impact. This ‘illusion’ or look makes it visually appealing to many players, because ‘pinched’ is what they are looking for.

The Super Power weighs in at a little more than 4.5 oz., around 120 grams. It is on the extremely light side of the scale. The plastic itself is medium in terms of rating its flexibility.

We traditionally have liked STX scoops because they are usually thin and flat, good for getting the blade under the ball to scoop it off the ground. The Super Power keeps the tradition. The scoop is identical to the Proton Power, arcing strongly upward at the top of the head, which means that less of the head is initially touching ground on a pick-up attempt. It also means the Super is crisp at a higher angle for the one-handed and running scoops. The bottom of the scoop goes in and out making it very narrow in between the 4 holes spaced evenly across the scoop blade, making the Super Power scoop section perhaps a little ‘less stiff’ overall.

The older Proton Powers have fewer stringing holes (10) along the sidewall bottom than the new Super Power (15) does, but they are reinforced stringing holes while none of the 15 holes on the Super Power are. The extra 5 holes do have the ability to stretch your stringing imagination and pocket possibilities. Unlike the throat bottom of the Proton Power, the Super Power throat has 4 holes that are big enough to fit leathers for Rock-it Pockets and traditional style pockets. The old Proton Power had only two holes for leathers to come through at the bottom.

The Super Power has the same Proton Power style of a built in ‘shock absorbing’ ball stop. This doesn’t make a large area behind that ball stop for the ‘bag’ of the pocket to comfortably sit down low in the head. The ball stop set up and the longer opening affect pocket placement and performance, and in general the Super Power will appeal more to the player that likes his pocket higher up in head.

We don’t particularly like the Super Power for defensemen, mostly because the head is light and not that stiff. It does function pretty well for the attack man, however. We find the overall shape of the Super Power to be, like the Proton Power, shooter friendly.