words & image // Zack Schlemmer
Today's ad features the Air Street Defender. If you're unfamiliar with this shoe, you may still be wondering what it's for. Well, it's a street hockey shoe! That's right, street hockey. Apparently in the mid 90's this sport was popular enough for Nike to make a line of street hockey specific footwear. Nike's small line of street hockey shoes were officially endorsed by the NHL and all had the NHL logo somewhere on the shoe.
The Street Defender is a big and beefy shoe made to protect your feet from hockey sticks and built strong to stand up to the pavement. It's design is basically an ice hockey skate, without the skate. It had a very high top to protect your ankles, a rubber toe cap, a visible Air-Sole, and thick hockey style laces. While based off of a hockey skate, it's design is also comparable to Nike's Ndestrukt line of basketball shoes from the same time period.
While many "sneakerheads" probably won't appreciate this shoe, the true shoe nerds do. The Street Defender is an interesting artifact of 90's footwear and culture. Nike's street hockey line didn't last long and if you had a pair you probably destroyed them, so all the shoes are now very rare and hard to find. Anybody have a pair in their collection?
