The Lucky Tape Splice

It’s the night of the big tilt. You finish pregame warmies, and head into the locker room to tape up the twig. You grab a crisp roll of Howies 1” White Cloth from your Howies Accessory Bag, and get to work. So far, it is an absolute masterpiece. Each strip is evenly distributed across the blade. There’s the perfect amount of overlap, and absolutely no creases or air bubbles. This may be the best TJ you have ever done. You are nearing the final few wraps. You are thinking about how you are definitely going to snap a photo when this is finished, and send it @HowiesHockeyTape for a chance to be featured on TJ Tuesday. Then you notice something is wrong. There is a seam in the middle of the roll. It appears to be connecting two long strips of tape into one roll, and it almost looks hand stitched. This has got to be some kind of mistake! Worst of all, your perfect TJ is now ruined. You show it to your teammate in anger, and he turns to you in awe. He tells you that the hockey gods have just blessed you. You are now a guaranteed “anytime goal scorer” for the big game

Finding the spice/stitch on a roll of tape is extremely rare. It’s like finding a golden ticket in a Wonka chocolate bar, or hitting the Powerball on the $200B jackpot. Ok, maybe that’s a small exaggeration, but in the tape industry, it really is considered lucky to find one of these bad boys on a roll. It is only seen once per batch, which is about 10,000 rolls. This means you have a 0.0001% chance of seeing this when you purchase a roll. Taking this further, if you bought 3 rolls of white cloth per week from the day you were born for the rest of your life, it would take you roughly until after your 64th birthday to statistically ensure that you find the lucky seam. This is why they say that the hockey gods are blessing you with a guaranteed goal in your next game! I am 23 years old and work at Hockey Tape company, and I have never had the pleasure of being blessed with one of these treasures. 

The reasoning for the splice is to connect two larger spools of tape when one runs out. The large spools can make roughly 10,000 rolls, at 24 yards a piece. The measurement is never exact, so oftentimes the larger spool runs out mid-roll; thus needing this stitching to connect the spools to continue the manufacturing process. We understand that it may be frustrating to have your pristine tape job interrupted due to the manufacturing process. For this reason, we add a few extra yards to these rolls. That way you can start your taping process over, and not feel like you were getting less tape than a normal roll. 

We hope you now understand the rarity in uncovering one of these lucky seams. We understand that it may be frustrating to have your TJ interrupted, but hope that this can make it right! Best of luck in your upcoming game, and let us know if the Tape-Seam-Hockey-Gods blessed you with a goal!