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Gait Lacrosse, the equipment brand with a cult following, relaunched in the fall of 2019 after a four-year hiatus. Founded by all time greats twin brothers Gary and Paul Gait, Gait Lacrosse offers top of the range products in Men's and Women's Lacrosse. The company uses the tagline "Be Legendary" which could not be any more appropriate, Gary and Paul are some of the best to have ever played the game.
The new line included legacy men's products like the Gait Torque head and Gait Ice handle, as well as a women’s head, the Gait Air. Even Gait's first women's stick got the game excited about what was to come. In 2020 Gait took the women's game by storm with amazing products such as the Apex, Whip, Flex Mesh and the Gait Draw. The double-sidewall design seen in the Draw essentially gives the head two pockets — a deeper front pocket for the draw and one with standard depth for field play. No more swapping sticks. The Gait proved itself to be so dominate that nearly every draw taking midfielder was using it, in fact demand was so high that Northern Soul shipped 12 Draw sticks back to the USA in a 3 week period!
“We nailed it on this women’s draw stick,” Paul Gait said. “If you don’t have it and you’re up against one, chances are you’re going to lose.”
Our best selling women's stick? It's the Gait Apex. It's great to see the reaction of players who try the Apex out in our shop or at an event where we are vending, you can see their face light up.
When asked what the best women's stick on the market is, it's tough to say but it's going to be either a Gait Apex or a Gait Whip. Stick choice is always a personal thing but we can count the players who didn't like these sticks on one hand. When combined with the Flex Mesh they really do set themselves apart from the rest of the field. Gait has fast become a leader in the women's game for the production of sticks that perform at the highest level. The Gait Apex and Gait Whip have become 2 of the top sticks on the market and were used by a huge number of players at the 2022 Women's Lacrosse World Championships. It's a safe bet to say that more goals were scored in the tournament with Gait sticks than any other brand.
One product that really got the attention of the men's game was the Gait D, aka "The Can Opener". More decades men's head technology has really focused on ball retention and fast shots, checking the ball from modern sticks has forced rule changes aplenty in the USA.
The NCAA is trying it's hardest to have this head banned which is a crying shame. The Gait D really is the ONLY head that gives a defenseman any sort of advantage at a time that attacker sticks are so difficult to check the ball from. If and it's big if, the NCAA wins this battle of the use of the Gait D then it's highly unlikely you will see it banned here in Europe. A referee said to me a month or so back that he thinks it should be banned, I had to remind him we can still use HS spec narrow heads and U or V shooters.
Since their rebirth, Gait have quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the women's game. With their men's equipment they are still relatively small, but that does not mean that they are not worth considering. Their approach to designing equipment seems completely different to the way most other companies do it, they look at the rules and find ways to skirt and bend them. They aren't afraid of taking a risk with an unconventional design such as the Gait D, and okay the rules have been changed to prevent the use of the Gait D in NCAA Lacrosse, but that goes to show how well the designers at Gait are doing, making such a game changing head.