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Pete Smith had been hinting for a year now that he'd found, in his words, the first major step forward in C/A design since John Brown's top units hit the scene in the 1980s. That was a huge moment for goalies who had grown up with upper body protection that was largely cotton, felt, and a few bits of leather-covered plastic sewn over key spots -- and, most importantly, separate pieces for the arms and chest: hence the lingering terminology of a 'chest-and-arm' protector. Brown's major innovations were the perfection of shoulder-floater and elbow-floater designs, and the protection layered behind them, covering the gaps created by the integration of arms and chest into a single unit, and a layering of felt, thick plastics, and low-density foam that remains the gold standard (I may need need to say, 'remained until now') in protection and rebound absorbtion. John's design has reigned supreme (in various guises) for the last three decades. There were, however, a couple of drawbacks to this design, and no-one had, until now, been able to get outside them. The first was that any increase in protection required thicker layering, and thicker layering meant more resistance at the joints: the old mobility/protection compromise. This was invariably most noticeable at the elbows -- in large part because even Brown's C/A had a recognised weakness there. The gap in the curved arm plastics behind the elbow-floaters, necessary both for mobility and sane construction, meant that a shot into the seam of the elbow-floater was going to hit the joint slowed down by little more than a few layers of nylon and open-cell foam. This gap had to also be relatively big, since at full flexion the forearm touches the bicep, and anything in between limits the range of movement. This brings us to the single biggest innovation on the Ritual Pro C/A, and the most obvious one: the AxyFlex elbows. What's fascinating about this is that Pete Smith has been inventing and patenting foam and plastic hinges on goalie equipment since the 1990s; his thought has been going in this direction for a while. The AxyFlex elbow is really quite simple in its function, like most pieces of truly elegant and effective design. When the elbow is fully extended, the elbow-floater sits straight across the joint, a few centimetres in front of the actual elbow, suspended on its 'slider', and the hard elbow-cap (a flopping goalie's best friend!) is recessed up into the tricep area. As the elbow flexes, the elbow floater does too, just as on traditional designs -- but Smith's elbow-floater also slides outward, removing itself from the joint, as the elbow-cup hinges out with it. Thus, thoughout the movement of the elbow, there is minimal material between the forearm and bicep, and yet no gap in protection anywhere. This looks just about perfect, to my mind. The close-up picture in the catalogue of Gustavsson (you can tell by the scraggly beard) reaching across his body demonstrates that this is a C/A designed to take full advantage of 'L-Theory': the idea that a goalie should (when possible) flip his glove over like a baseball catcher and intercept pucks anywhere inside the 'L' shape formed by running a line from his blocker shoulder down to his hip, with the bottom of the 'L' across his hips. The main thing I wonder about, at this point, are how the elbows will work in less regular situations -- puck-handling (which one demo goalie cited as a concern in the InGoal review), Hasek-rolls, recoveries from prone and seated positions, etc. -- in essence, the whole range of athleticism that falls out side 'textbook' butterfly goaltending. It looks to me like it will work beautifully, but it's hard to judge any way except first-hand. The only other long-term concern is the durability of the joint. InGoal talks briefly about how, during Warrior's testing, the AxyFlex joint was simplified and recessed into a plastic channel on the sides of the elbow (which tends to take glancing rather than head-on impacts under usual conditions). I would go further, and point out that in the final version pictured in the catalogue, the AxyFlex 'slider' assembly looks extremely easy to repair and replace. The slider mechanism is held in place by a loop of 3mm cord and a small plastic tab -- little different, in that respect, from Smith's sliding toe-bridge on the Ritual pads and their precursors. If, by chance, someone did tag the outside of the slider assembly with a shot hard enough to break it, it would A) probably continue to function just fine, B) ultimately be replaced in a matter of a couple of minutes by anyone who can tie and untie a shoelace. It's really quite ingenious. Just as the AxyFlex elbows are direct descendants of Smith's earlier work, the other high-profile component of the Ritual Pro C/A - the Shockshield exoskeletal plastics on the forearm and bicep -- are likewise the cunning application of tried-and-true principles. InGoal Magazine seems to think that what Warrior calls the 'trampoline liner', and what InGoal calls a 'hammock' suspension (an "inch-plus gap") behind the Shockshield exoskeleton is something unique, but anyone who has ever handled Jofa's (now Reebok's) JDP 'Joint Displacement Principle' gear, or even looked closely at a good pro shinpad, knows better. In fact, just look at the hard plastic elbow-cups on the Ritual C/A (another nice touch!): they are clearly derived from Jofa's heritage. InGoal even makes an explicit comparison between the plastic of player shin-pads and the Ritual Pro arms without realising that they're talking about the same principle. What Dr. Smith did was apply a time-tested concept in equipment design to a new location: the bicep and forearm, as opposed to the elbow and shin. It's brilliantly clever, and definitely worthy of the pending patent, but it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Also, this basic idea is part of Brown's original design. His nylon shell and liner are stitched in such a way as to create a similar sling effect behind the internal plastics; the difference is that Smith makes this a primary rather than a secondary part of the protective package. While the catalogue makes much of the the Velcro-based adjustability of the harness and back-pad, the related adjustability of the shoulder-floaters is, to my mind, one of the most remarkable things about the Ritual Pro C/A. The Ritual Pro not only has removable Velcro 'stiffeners' to control the shape of the shoulder-floaters -- removed for a countoured fit over the clavicle, or installed for a more tall, rigid, up-by-the-ears fit -- but the entire shoulder-floater appears to be moveable and indeed removable. This is incredibly smart, since shoulder-floaters are invariably one of the earliest wear-points on a C/A, especially at the attachment points. There are removable liners in the arms, as with the jock. This too is nothing short of a godsend. I would have preferred to see a removable and washable rear face to the entire chest and belly unit, but I'm sufficiently thrilled that I'll be able to effectively wash the interior of the arms regularly and easily. My sole performance concern with the Ritual C/A design -- and evaluating this will have to wait until I have some shots in it -- is the rebound profile. This is likely to be a major concern for many goalies, but I want to nip hysteria in the bud. Modern goaltending has, by and large, evolved away from the classic 'cushion-and-cover' model that was predominant up until the mid 1990s. The traditional approach was to use very soft padding, and very soft technique, to keep rebounds as close as possible so they could be easily covered up. Even with modern high-density foam leg pads, a combination of perfect timing and old technique can still drop a relatively hard shot inside three feet. The problem is that with the advent of curved sticks, the legal allowance of bigger curves, and the ultra-thin composite blades most shooters are using, three feet away from the goalie is more than most shooters need to nestle the puck up into the top of the net with even a momentary touch of the puck. Thus, modern goaltending became about rebound CONTROL, rather than pure absorbtion. The goaltending rebound-rating system (versions of which are used by every major team) empahsises this: if you can't catch the shot cleanly (L-theory) or trap it to your body (gut-trap/body-cradle), the shot should be ramped hard and high to the back glass with the stick, blocker, etc., or at least booted out of harm's way. The two worst kinds of rebounds to give up (garnering the highest ratings, typically) are midline rebounds, coming out straight off the body back toward the shooter, and weak-side rebounds in which the puck comes off the goalie into an area that leaves almost the entire net open. InGoal's review insists that "if we are talking about a goaltender down in blocking mode, with arms extended down to the side and blind to the puck about to hit them, there is no way that doesn't produce a rebound no matter what they are wearing." This, I'm sorry to say, is not a strong position in terms of equipment or technique. One of Mitch Korn's basic screen-shot drills is to put a mask-bag over the goalie's head, then hit him in the stomach and chest with pucks; this completely eliminates visual anticipation of impacts, and yet well-trained goalies will still demonstrate mastery in cradling or trapping pucks to the body with their gloves: only a 'softening' of the abdomen into a concave shape (largely by dropping the butt down) during the impact. The same thing can be accomplished with the arms by keeping them relaxed and ready to soften a little on impact: enough to absorb the shot while still closing the 'seal' of the arm along the body. With a classic Brown C/A, the layering of materials (felt, plastic, low-density Plastazote foam, and open-cell foam) creates what John called a 'Shockwave' effect, with each layer soaking up a little more of the impact. In short, if you locked your arms rigidly, the puck would pop off, but some energy would still be absorbed. With the Warrior Ritual C/A, technique will be of paramount importance. It will still be possible to absorb those blind (e.g. screened) impacts, especially with the responsiveness of the mechanical elbow-joint, but you won't get any help from the materials. The flip-side of the Jofa JDP suspension design is that localised impacts (e.g. pucks) can really explode off the plastic side. Blocked shots do not come off shinpads with much energy loss. That said, most of the time, these high-energy rebounds can be very beneficial, as many of InGoal's testimonials noted. Shots that cannot be caught in front of the body or trapped to it -- hard one-timers, quick high-velocity releases in close, etc., especially on the outside edges of the body and arms -- should ideally be angled away and high and hard as possible. In these scenarios, the propensity of a Brown-style C/A to soak energy out of any puck is actually a huge drawback, and the Ritual's exoskeleton a major plus. Get the outside of your elbow under a shot in a Brown-style C/A, and you'll probably deflect it over the net; get the Ritual's huge plastic shield on it, and you'll probably put it over the glass and out of play -- a much better result. It's on shots 'within' the body, from the apex of the curve of the bicep and inward -- i.e. in the midline -- that I'm most interested in the Ritual C/A's behaviour. Firstly, the exterior plastics would suggest that this C/A will be more likely to give up midline rebounds if technique is less than ideal (due to fatigue, circumstance, or just weakness) -- not only off the arms, but off the big plastic sternum guard. Second, my impression is that while the Ritual C/A's arms offer exceptional flexibility and responsiveness, the belly looks to be relatively rigid. I can't yet imagine how I'd make my midsection, including the C/A, go soft and concave the way it should in a classic gut-trap. I could perform that contortion behind the C/A, but 'I get the impression that the C/A would remain more or less upright because of the long shoulder-floaters and the sternum-guard. This isn't necessarily a problem, since it's possible that the C/A would collapse back enough on impact that it would effectively accomplish the same thing, but I'm always interested in moments when goaltending technology seems (note, seems) to depart from anatomical athleticism. My final and related note, which is no longer of relevance to me but of potential interest to others, is that the Ritual appears to be a 'non-tucking' C/A and pant combination. (Tucking, for those who care, is not like a gentleman's 'dressing', but refers to the tucking of the bottom of the C/A into the top of the pants, then securing the C/A inside the pants with tie-downs.) The wide-open front of the Ritual pants and the relatively short, rigid belly all suggest that this is a C/A meant to be worn free and loose. That's not to say that you couldn't 'tuck' the Ritual Pro C/A or use a long, tuckable C/A with the pants; you'd likely just need to use the pants on their 'straight cant' setting on the internal belt, and set the C/A to hang relatively low using the Velcro harness. As I think my little introduction illustrates, the Ritual Pro C/A is going to be one of the most discussed pieces of equipment this year. I suspect there will be an unfortunate amount of uninformed back-talk about 'Transformers' and 'Robocop', about perceived cheating (this thing has nothing on Garth Snow's shoulder-shingles or Giguere's Conn Smythe-ridiculing monstrosity), and a variety of other nonsense ultimately driven by Golden Age fallacy. What will emerge, however, is how well this radical design works under fire in the long run. FOLLOW-UP: An ECHL goalie named Rob Madore (now with the Florida Everblades) has posted a really interesting review of the Ritual Pro, rightly full of praise for Eric Marvin, Warrior's pro goal rep; and here's his set of pictures, some of which I've included with relevant text below: And from another guy (Tony) in Montreal who's also been testing it: This suggests that most of my speculations about the Ritual Pro's performance are pretty close to what others have observed, but there are still a number of things that would need to be examined over the long haul. And, just for informational purposes, an example of sizing advice from Warrior's Frank Dagneau: Finally, it's worth noting that Eric Marvin has confirmed that custom options will NOT be available (outside of some pro-issue units, presumably) on the Ritual Pro C/A this year, but he does put it forward as a good 'chassis' for competent mod-artists (like himself) to expand on:

With my Ritual LTR on mutually-agreed hiatus, I figured I'd chime in on what JR has correctly described as a major step forward in goaltending technology: fitting to celebrate at the end of the lockout! The key thing here is what Warrior finally has a comprehensive and interactive suite of goalie equipment. Of course, I can't yet speak to how these different components actually work together, but the bar has been set, and the sky's the limit. InGoal Magazine has only touched on the C/A so far, so I'll first spend some time with the lower-body offerings... JOCK While every goalie appreciates a jock's protection, there has been an almost linear trade-off between protection and mobility at the waist. More plastics and high-density foams in a larger pelvic shield, less mobility; more mobility means less of those, and thus less protection. By designing the jock's Shockshield to 'float' down and away from the waist on adjustable elastics as the goalie bends forward, and by scalloping the top of the Shockshield and the top of the jock's inner padding, Pete Smith appears to have engineered a compromise that allows for the highest levels of mobility while keeping the protection extremely high. It might have been possible to add a few more spots of protection around the perimeter, but this looks to be a huge winner for Warrior. Notice the waistband as well: elastic at the front, but a large, extremely wide, comfortable synthetic leather band at the back -- more like a high-end toolbelt than a traditional jock. Brilliant design choice. Oh, and the removable liner -- genius. I currently have to throw my whole Vaughn Epic jock in the wash when I want it cleaned, and this will make a huge improvement on the longevity of this piece of gear -- to say nothing of Warrior's application of their best and brightest 'Silver Shield' material in a crucial area. Now, of course, no jock is worth anything unless it interacts well with… PANTS I will admit to being far more interested in goalie pants than most guys, in part because they are, like jocks, almost invariably a compromise between protection and mobility. There are things you can do in a pair of shorts that you simply can't do in goalie pants -- or so it seems. That said, I think Warrior's on to something here, and it's a massive improvement over last year's holdover Messiah pants. The Messiah pants were nice, light, comfy, and extremely mobile, but the Ritual pants look like an enormous leap forward into very, very good company. The biggest feature of the pants is the 'Flexplate' setup: the set of overlapping, segmented plates across the thigh, groin, and hip. While it's easy to pile padding into the thigh and hip, one of the biggest design challenges in goaltending is how to add protection to the upper anterior aspect of pants (the front of the groin) without compromising mobility. In this, Dr. Smith has clearly drawn on the three benchmark pro-issue pants of the last two decades: the CCM 620G (aka RBK Premier 1/PS1), the CHL-only Easton goalie pants, and the Reebok Premier 2 (aka PS2, which has been Reebok basic design ever since). The 620 and the Easton pants (which were designed by Michel Ferland, and updated in his MF2 goalie pants, now owned but still not marketed by Combat Sports) use what is generally called an 'accordion' design: a set of three (620) or four (Easton/MF) triangles, wedges, or rectangles of protection sewn tightly together, and which collapse as the goalie bends forward. This accordion design is not only highly mobile, but the best protection you can get: when using heavy HDPE plastics and good foams, it creates a 'bridge' from the pelvic shield of any good jock all the way to the hip-cups of the pants, completely shielding the pelvis and groin. Lefebvre's PS2 pant design improved on this by making the lower part of the accordions 'flaps' that hang down over the main thigh-pads, eliminating a final traditional gap in protection there and a few ergs of resistance in waist flexion. On the Ritual pants, however, Dr. Smith has brought this design to its logical perfection: an accordion design that floats in front of the pelvis, rather than being sewn into the pant. This allows the accordion to offer a complete 'three-way bridge' of pelvic protection, radiating out from the jock to the thigh-pads and hip-cups. Likewise, the hip and kidney protection is an eerily intelligent combination of floating external shields and segmented internal protection. All in all, the Ritual Flexlplate system looks like a world-beat -- though much will depend on the material choices, and, of course, how they play in the real world. The 'AxyCut' is an attempt to solve a classic butterfly issue -- pants jamming against the lateral gusset of pads -- without resorting to comically short thigh-guards, and while maintaing the NHL-spec 10" total width of each thigh. Basically, Warrior just notched out the bottom lateral (outside) corner of the thigh-pads, exactly the same way that all thigh-pads are notched at the groin (on the opposite corner, top-medial). These are indeed the very corners pants that jam against pads, but it remains to be seen how effective this will be in practise. Internal-belt systems, as on the Ritual pants, are touchy issues. I love them, but they are technically illegal in NHL-spec play, and I've gradually moved to suspenders because of the difficulties of making an internal belt play nicely with a good goalie jock. That, of course, is where complementary design comes in. The 'Adjustable Cant' feature of the Ritual's internal belt allows not only different stances but also different physiques to be accommodated: guys with burgeoning beer-bellies will likely love the forward cant setting, while skinner guys will appreciate a pant that finally doesn't slip off them. The fully mesh rear of the pants is a great idea -- great for airflow both in-game cooling and post-game drying, and a major improvement in flexibility -- but my favourite ancillary feature of these pants has to be the (as yet unseen) removable suspender buttons. If you don't use suspenders, you don't need them; if you do, you know how they are invariably the weak link in any pair of pants -- and if they're removable, they're replaceable. A wonderful little touch. And no matter how nice a pair of pants may feel, they aren't much fun to play in unless they interact well with… KNEE PADS This is a murderously tricky piece of equipment to design. The knee-joint is one of the most flexible points on the body, apart from the knuckles (as any player-glove designer would tell you), and knee-joint design has baffled even NASA for decades. Fortunately, we're not designing actual space-suits -- just metaphorical ones. Dr. Smith's chosen a three-piece design for the Warrior knee-pads, as opposed to the one-piece flexible shield used by Master John Brown (my preferred knees). This basic three-piece design has been commonplace in goaltending for the last decade plus: it's been used by Koho and Reebok, Itech and Bauer, Vaughn, Simmons, Passau, Stomp, and just about every other goalie company, great and small -- though some slap a massive fourth shield over the top and call it revolutionary. They all use the same basic pieces, sources from the same places, attached in basically the same way. The Warrior knees, however, have a couple of important differences. Firstly, unlike Reebok and Bauer, Warrior has very sensibly (like Vaughn and others) done away with the 'hard ball' plastic cup on the front of the kneecap. This really should be common sense, but the illustrations in the catalogue make it clear as to why this hard ball cap, which has caused enormous problems for many goalies (and actually cut me up worse than a puck ever has), is totally superfluous. The two upper shields protect the knee and thigh from impacts; the lower piece is simply there to ensure that the knee doesn't come out from behind those shields, to hold the padding in place, and to give a little extra cushioning in case the knee slips off the knee-block of the pads. Second, and quite subtly, the Ritual knee-pads offer a longer lower piece than most. A common problem with knee-pads and the 'closed' or fitted leg-channels on the Ritual pads and many others is that the part of the knee-pad that wraps below the knee will 'pop out' the top of the leg-channel, then jam as it tries to slide back in; this is particularly noticeable in butterfly recoveries and the VH position, and can be extremely detrimental to overall mobility. Most goalies just blow this off as 'not working' and try something else, or ditch the knee-pads altogether. By simply extending the Ritual knee-pads below the knee, down the top of the calf, Warrior has completely solved a problem that has been bedevilling goalies since Dr. Smith introduced butterfly pads with the Velocity. And, these will probably feel more like the hallowed D&R (then Daigneault & Rolland) GK10 knee-pads that for some many years were the hidden secret of the early butterfly goalies. Finally, Warrior's 'TaperFit' design should ensure that the two massive problems with this three- and four-piece knee-pad design -- interaction with pants, and with rotation of the leg behind the pad -- are minimised, if not entirely eliminated. (FWIW, the traditional terminology of the 'rotation of pads' is an oxymoron. Watch a modern goalie's pads: by and large, they face up-ice all the time, while the goalie's legs do gymnastics behind them.) This is to say that while 'TaperFit' is really just a greater curvature of the upper two pieces than you'll find on any other version of these kneepads, it has a huge impact on performance and protection. The medial (inside) aspect of the knee-pads, which rests against the knee-block of the pads in the stance, will rotate more easily behind the pad to bring the knee-cap around the back of the pad to face down into the knee-block in the butterfly. The lateral (outside) aspect of the knee-pads, which protects the outside of the knee from impacts in the stance and VH (which can be incredibly painful and debilitating) is likewise so beautifully rounded off that as it rotates around to rest against the back of the pad in the butterfly, there should be little to no resistance or pressure against the back of the pad (which can cause the pads to tip forward in the butterfly, mistakenly called 'under-rotation' of the pads). And, of course, the tapering of the upper piece should mean that the Ritual knee-pads can slide in and out of the leg of any pair of pants with far greater ease, no matter how massive the thigh-pads may be. (NB also that there is a nice, heavy leather tab on the back of the upper shield of the knee-pads, for securing them to the pants: a thoughtful touch. I'll follow this up with a longer post about the undisputed crown jewel of the Warrior Ritual 2012 lineup: the Smith-designed C/A (chest-and-arm).

WOOOOOOOT!!!!! finally got a decent pair of Eagle H34! palms are in perfect shape! best $40 I ever spent! edited to replace with better pic

DR Legend gloves, you can get them for $60 at hockey tron