NHL Forward Dakota Joshua Puts D3O® Phone Protection to the Ultimate On-Ice Test

Huntington Beach, CA –12/03/2025: D3O®, the global leaders in advanced impact protection materials, extensively tests its technology in war zones on mountains and racetracks. This time, the British ingredient brand took its phone protection testing to the ice, teaming up with professional hockey player, Dakota Joshua and Coach Jeremy from the How to Hockey YouTube channel to see how D3O® infused phone cases would perform against professional-level hockey impact. 

On the ice at the Upper Canada College, Joshua stickhandled, passed, and took shots with a selection of iPhone 16, and 17 models all protected by a variety of cases containing D3O® ingredients. The experiment, broken down into 4 tests, was designed to demonstrate how D3O® performs under extreme impacts, far beyond the industry standard phone case drop test. 

In laboratory conditions, phone cases are typically drop-tested from 1, 1.6, and 3 meters, generating up to around 8 joules of impact energy. But when a phone and case weighing 268 grams is passed by a hockey stick at 40 km/h (11.1 m/s), that impact more than doubles to 16.5 joules which is the equivalent of dropping a phone from over 13 meters, and that’s just a pass.  

When a regulation hockey puck weighing 170 grams is hit at 120 km/h (33.3 m/s), it carries around 94 joules of kinetic energy, which is the equivalent to a phone being dropped 36 meters, 12 times than the toughest standard drop test and roughly the same as dropping a phone from a 14-story building. 

“It was an awesome way to test phone cases.” Said Dakota Joshua. “I was amazed at how the phones held up against some hard hits, the D3O cases clearly provide effective protection as I was hitting them across the ice with the same force I would in a game”  

The results on the ice were impressive. The phones were undamaged when being passed at 40kms across the ice, during some fast-paced stick handling and being shot into the goal at 74kms an hour. Only when Joshua fired a puck full speed directly at a phone tied to the goal did one finally reach its limit by cracking the back of the phone as it fell to the ice. 

“At D3O, we test our products differently. Our materials are trusted by special forces, elite athletes, and the world’s leading phone case manufacturers because they perform when it matters most. This ice hockey test demonstrates just how well D3O ingredients dissipate energy and can withstand impacts that go far beyond conventional drop tests.” Stuart Sawyer, CEO, D3O 

D3O® materials are used by leading phone case manufacturers around the world, including AXS, Hama, SBS, and Dbramante1928, engineered to absorb and dissipate impact energy to protect devices from drops, knocks, and shocks. This latest test demonstrates why D3O® has become the go-to ingredient brand for impact protection not just for smartphones, but across sports, motorcycling, mountain biking, workwear, military and law enforcement applications. 

Known for pushing products to the limit, D3O® regularly collaborates with elite athletes including motorcycle road racing champion Michael Dunlop and freeride mountain biking icon Casey Brown, proving its materials perform when protection matters most. 

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