“Allround blade…Remarkable stability when shooting” - Zonefloorball.com
Zone’s Air/One is their lightest blade release up to date. As someone who is not that tapped into the Swedish floorball scene, this drop came completely out of the blue. I had not seen any Air/One advertisements in Finland, granted, I am not that active on social media, but it is still somewhat odd that the world’s lightest blade at the time of release was not heavily marketed. Like many other kids at that time, I used to have a Zone Air Concept stick when they first started to get popular in Finland. Zone has had a special place in my heart ever since, but for some odd reason, I never decided to use it again since the first stick broke. This time though, the opportunity seemed too good to miss. With my head full of nostalgia and Zone’s marketing jargon, I went ahead and purchased the bispee blue beauty.
Where some older products from Zone have excelled in shooting and power, Air/One seems to focus on finesse and control. If you do a bit of digging, the source of this design choice is obvious. Unihoc, which is owned by the same parent company, had a huge success in Unilite a year prior and it would be stupid not to build a lightweight product for Zone using a similar structure. Make it a bit smaller to shave a gram or two of the weight, give it a new striking colour and voilà, you have a new flagship product.
The people in Zone’s marketing department must have been sipping something other than their regular morning coffee when they wrote that Air/One has “remarkable stability when shooting”. I personally have found the exact opposite to be the case. The blade does bend quite a lot when shooting drag shots, which results in an inconsistent and flimsy feeling. This might be due to my shooting style, but I didn’t manage to find a comfortable shooting feeling over my testing period. As goal scoring is largely about confidence and consistency, I would look elsewhere for a better shooting option.
Regardless of the deficiencies in shooting attributes, Air/One makes up for it in passing and touch. Receiving passes feels extremely smooth on both my PP and PP+ variants and quick touch passes happen effortlessly with both backhand and forehand. The ball seems to hit your blade and just stay there. Making runs while protecting the ball feels very comfortable, too bad converting these runs into shooting opportunities is not quite as good. Air/One fits any playmaking role, but I think it is best suited for centers. The phenomenal control qualities help raise Air/One out of the FSL territory into the “conditionally recommended”.
Is Air/One competitive with the other two lightest blades, Unilite and Highlight? Probably not. Is there any reason to even buy Air/One then? Definitely yes. There is a case to be made for Air/One as the number one playmaker blade from Zone. The current fan favourite, Supreme, has qualities like its size that still push it ahead of Air/One for most people, but personally I do prefer the lighter weight of Air/One. All in all, this blade does fill an important spot in Zone’s catalogue as they take the leap towards future lightweight blade design. Air/One does have some clear flaws, but it is still a serviceable product. Not all blades are made for shooters and that is fine. Just don’t lie and market it as such.