We don't recommend buying Third Assist on the secondary market in 2025. Let’s give some details here. In a well-intentioned effort to share the game we love, we have found some of our Third Assist equipment being sold on the secondary market that isn’t 100% up to our standards. So how does that happen?

Long story short, we started up selling gloves in 2014 and as part of that process we’ve made plenty of samples and models. For every one model that actually hits our website we make a number of samples beforehand with our partners. That being said, we always have on hand a number of samples of varying quality before we get to the product we truly enjoy and want to share.

And what have we historically done with the samples? As long as they were functional and safe, we just donated them to friends and contacts at local rinks and burgeoning hockey efforts. We didn’t feel right charging anyone for these since they weren’t 100% up to our standards, but since they were still functional and safe we said let’s just give them away for free. For a number of years we donated in Maine. We’ve donated in Maryland. We’ve donated in Tennessee.

Why is that a challenge? Well now we’re finding individuals who are taking bundles of donated sample gear and selling it secondhand on the internet. Although our donations over the last decade have been well intentioned, we probably should’ve seen this coming. Of course we don’t mind if people use the gear, but we just want to make sure that if you are paying even $1 for TA gear, it’s the best quality possible.

So what do we recommend? We could say “buy direct from us”, but you don’t have to do that. As an alternative, we’d be happy to help you out even if we don’t make a dollar from it. If you see something secondhand you’re interested in feel free to just shoot us an email at info@thirdassist.com or DM us on Facebook or Instagram asking “is this gear legit”? We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

At the end of the day, we just want to make sure you’re getting the best gear possible and don’t purchase something that’s “almost there”. It’s always been about keeping the community excited about our gear, so let us know if/where we can continue to do that. As for the TA community, we always got your back.