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As this thread has degraded into a spiraling chain of repeated statements and a soap box for helmet fit, I suggest a motion to give this thread a rest for a few months. The internet needs the space.

Our championship was last night. I didn't have to do much, but did make one key save when it was 2-1 and they had a 2-on-0.

Back-to-back back-to-back champs! (4 in a row!)

Picked these up today, been eyeing them for sometime now.

No longer collecting dust in the back of one of my rink pro shops...

I scored a pair of game used Iginla CCM pro stocks from the Kings equipment sale last Saturday for $100(!) They are in great shape with literally zero smell whatsoever. I am assuming they were originally made for MacKinnon. I am debating on using them or just keeping them for display... they are kinda roomy inside because he had some of the padding removed but they still feel great. It's amazing how broken in they are, I got a really good deal. And even better, I was able to photo-match them with some games with the Avalanche where he wore them.

Sitting in a hotel in Frankfurt... it's been an absolutely wild ten days, nothing like I've ever experienced before. Halfway across the world to perform in four cities, trains and buses and trams, a new language to navigate and hotels and restaurants. And we did pretty well, for being an amateur - non-auditioned - church choir. Someone even asked if we had a CD out! A lot of work, and more singing and rehearsing than I've ever done, but well worth it. Immensely grateful for the opportunity.

I have a slow day at work so I gave a look and here is my not so professional opinion; Warmups - Tell your team to take shots from the point to help warm up your angles & ability to track the puck. If they want to take breakaways all day, they should earn them in the game or find a pickup Goal 1 at 2:34 - Yea it was deflected but you should have your stick covering 5 hole & close in the butterfly. Also from that angle you could hug the post in the butterfly & have your right leg extend right to take away the low area Goal 2 at 2:52 - Seems like you misread this, if I remember right you looked left but puck went in right. You tucked your right pad in & let it in. Kick out your right pad & its a save Goal 3 at 5:20 - First you are off angle cheating left, shooter had your whole right side to score. Your chest should always be in center line with the puck, not the skater. He shoots it into you & there is a rebound but you didn't get your pad kicked out / flush in time for save Goal 4 at 7:35 - Knocked the puck up right, not terrible but not ideal. Your mistake was trying to reach to grab the puck, you should always move you body & pads to the puck & try to cover for the scenario that happened to you (missed the puck with glove). It was a nice play by the skater for the rebound but you were caught planted in the center with all your weight behind you as you reached Goal 5 at 9:27 - I could drive a semi through the 5 hole you had on that goal. As with goal 1, stick on ice & close the butterfly. I'm not saying you need to have an NHL butterfly where the tops of the pads seal it, but if you see that puck coming dead on or you expect the puck to go 5 hole, jam your knees together & your knees / thigh / knee stacks will help seal the 5 hole. Even if the puck is off ice around groin high, it should hit your chest at least & then you hold it there / cover if it falls to ice I didn't see any 6th goal Overall, focus on closing the 5 hole & kicking out the legs to make saves. Focus on keeping the whole pad flush to the ice, you will need your hips, legs, & core to do this effectively. Also when you move while down (butterfly slides) practice keeping the leading leg pad kicked out & flat to take away more net. Angles weren't bad & try & come out a little more but it all takes practice so don't worry about it As for the mental aspect. you can't worry about what your offense does. If they can't score they can't score. Your job is to stop the puck so focus on that. If you go into a game & say if I let in 2 goals we lose, you already lost. In the games I play we've won games where I needed to hold the team to 1 goal & I've won games where I had to not let in the 6th goal. Every game is different but when I play each of those games I go into as "I'm gonna get a shutout & everyone else just needs to build me a nice lead to make it easier for me". Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but just worry about what you can control (and this advice applies to any goalie reading this of any skill level)

Well regardless if they understand it or not, they will be getting a safer helmet... Once again not SAFE helmet, but safer. Without rating, they will just get one that looks like "my little pony" or "r2d2". I think the world is a better place when there is something that can sway parents from buying those :-).

@Louie picked one up last week and said that the 9K shells line up perfectly with the attachment points on the new Super Tacks Girdle.

It's just common sense? I can put my helmet on my 9 year old, would you expect it to work the same as on my head? Of course not. I think there's too much call for evidence and studies and not enough common sense. A poorly fitting helmet will not work as well as it was intended. I don't need a study to tell me that. When I choose a helmet I see what fits first, then consider price point, then read the reviews, and may see if there's supplemental data (VT study). I think it's fine to consider the study as one factor in the decision making process, but for me it's the last. If a study finds a particular helmet scores the best but it does not fit your head, would you buy it?

Doctors don't make money on vaccines. They make more money treating for the illnesses the vaccines prevent. As far as the VT study goes, they measure the transfer of force to the headform the helmet is on. They use the same headform for every test regardless of the head shape the helmet was meant for. If you've ever had on a helmet that doesn't actually conform to your head you will immediately realize why this is a problem. The study tells absolutely nothing worthwhile about helmets that don't fit the headform they used. The helmets that fit it well score well, the helmets that do not score poorly.

Caps Sale set for Tuesday June 27, no official time given yet, more to come at a later date https://www.nhl.com/capitals/news/capitals-fan-fest-to-be-held-tuesday-june-27/c-289726668

10:45 PM beer league games. The past 2 Wednesday's, I've had 10:45 PM starts. Both were running behind, once on the ice at 11:20 PM, the other around 11:10 PM. Getting home around 1:00 AM and trying to get to sleep to be up at 6:00 AM is rough on an old man like me.

HUGE thank you to JR and Warrior for the chance to demo this! Review coming soon...

new VH skates for my girlfriend. many thanks to JR for helping us do the drawings and measurements when we were in Detroit back in April. :)

If she's determined, ask if she can sit in the penalty box or on the bench with a helmet. That's what I do when I'm injured and can't play.

I don't know. I guess responses that you've posted to suggestions that have been put forth. Kind of a "I'm doing well doing things my way, I'm not going to change it". But again, it's the internet, so context is lost. I apologize if i offended you or took your responses the wrong way. That was definitely not my intention. I'd love to help. So here's the key point, I'm glad you said something. Because of the physics of the human body, when you drop your butt down and back, your knees and feet have to be in the same line because your toes have to point straight down. When you say you can't bring your knees together without bringing your feet together, it's because you are dropping your butt back. What you are actually doing is pulling your feet to touch behind you, dropping your butt almost to sitting on your feet, and spreading your knees. Also, loosen your pads. I don't know how tight they are, but loosen them anyway. Make it so they are held on only with whatever elastic there is. Your knees don't have to be touching. Mine don't. It would actually be difficult with pants, knee guards, and thigh rises in there. But you have to be pulling your legs together and keeping your butt forward rather than pulling your feet together. Having a knee stack that is higher than the rest of the pad also takes strain off joints. Maybe look into knee stacks. I coach the goalies at the adult clinic at my local rink. I have seen several with the same issues as you. They almost always come down to pads being too tight and pulling their feet behind and dropping their butt. Those things combined put way too much stress on their hips/knees/ankles and they all complain of lack of flexibility. Here's what to do to try and learn. Next ice you get, even if it's warmups before a game or pick up, or during a stoppage in the other end, drop to your knees. Spread them maybe 6-8" apart, and get your hips forward so you are sitting almost as tall as you can. Then push your feet apart as far as you can. You'll find that you can get them about parallel to your knees, so both 6-8" apart. It will be a very narrow butterfly. But again, it's significantly better and different than what you are doing now by tapping your heels together behind yourself and then sitting on them, and having your knees spread out. I get you don't quite see the difference by taking what we're saying and what you're actually doing. But there is one. Maybe get that GoPro back there se you can see it both ways and compare. The movement problems you are having is because of your weight distribution. The spinning in place when you push is the indicator of that. What's happening is that all of your weight is over your left knee. So, pushing to your right with your left foot works, because that is the proper technique and position. But you literally can't push with your right because your weight is still on your left knee. When you try to lift your leg to engage the blade, you can't because your leg doesn't really bend like that. To get the leg near perpendicular to the ice, you have to have the weight on that side, or at least over center. If it's over the wrong leg, you can't lift the leg up, so you can't engage the blade or get any push. If you do push, the weight over the lead leg causes too much friction and you just spin and grind into the ice. The good thing is that this can be fixed. But focus on your butterfly and getting your hips forward anweight up first. Your back hurts because you are essentially doing crunches every time you drop. You don't have great core strength and your back doesn't have any support. If you think about it, the way you drop and move is forcing your abs and back to tense to support all of your weight and keep it upright. That causes lower back pain if you don't have the strength. Seriously, it's like you're adding a pilates workout to playing goal. Every time you want to move or get up, especially if you have to do it quickly, you have to use your core to get to the position you should be in, then move. That's rough. Go sit on the floor on your knees with your feet touching behind you. Then sit back on your feet. Then lift up so your shoulders are up and your hips are forward. Then sit back down. Then up. Repeat. If you really want to make it fun, go from sitting to upright, then stand up. Repeat that. See how quickly you get tired and your back starts to hurt. Then do it omitting the sitting back and then back up step. You'll see the difference right away. Also contributing to this is that you aren't sticking your edges into the ice for support. It's something we've mentioned before, but you're still doing it, though not as badly. What's happening is that your feet are constatnly sliding on the ice. Your edges aren't engaged into the ice. Watch a video of yourself and see how your feet are just sliding when you are in your stance, especially when you have to make small adjustments like backing in or a player moving laterally. This is also causing you to have to use your core to keep your body upright. You can't use your legs because they aren't stable on the ice. Generally lower back pain is caused by a weak core and abs. You are making your core do wayyyyy too much work, and your back hates you for it. It may look stupid, but when the puck is in the other end, you'd have a little free time to work on small things, like dropping correctly or weight control. Getting open ice is hard, so use every little bit you can get. Another idea would be to use your schedule the best way you can. If it doesn't allow getting to more ice sessions, you can do what you can at home. If you're eating dinner or watching some tv before bed, do it sitting on your knees in the right butterfly position and work on pushing your feet out to increase flexibility. Throw on the pads and just practice dropping correctly or shifting your weight to the push side and lifting that leg on both sides. You don't have to get crazy, but just little repetitive movements like that will help. I know that I had all of these grand plans of going to the gym on a regular basis. But life gets in the way, and honestly I'm lazy. Getting changed and getting to the gym before it closes just doesn't happen by the time i get home and deal with dinner and what not. So I started just doing simple body weight exercizes while I'm watching tv or before bed - push ups, crunches, planks, and other things that I do during intermissions of the playoff games. It isn't ever going to make me look like the Hulk. But I have lost fat in my stomach and added strength and muscle in my core, abs, chest, arms, and back. I'm happy with what I've gained, and the idea that it's simple and can be done in my own time has kept me doing it, where if it was just going to the gym in time (or open ice sessions in yours) I probably wouldn't. And now I get to the gym to do harder work when I can. But I don't feel like I have to in order to actually do anything.

I've been playing on and off for three years now including almost 1.5 year of time off from injury in the last two years I'm aware I suck but I'm a gamer when needed i went to Las Vegas for the NCHL draft tournament and they finally sent me the video from February where I won the shootout for the B championship ive never won shit in hockey as a forward or goalie so this was a cool feeling

a few of my more recent pick ups: broke my "no Reebok stuff" rule for this one:

I'm going to say this as gently as possible. In no way am I trying to be mean or disrespectful, so please do not take it that way. I just want to be straight and honest, so hopefully it might help. My impression from your posts on here is of someone who thinks they are much better than they are and doesn't really want anyone else's help. I've stopped offering pointers or critques of your videos because of it. I thought you didn't want to hear them anymore. It may not be how you feel, the loss of context over the internet often causes misinterpretations. Maybe you do it subconsciously. Or maybe you're the kind of person who likes to figure things out on their own. Maybe a combination of these and other things. I can't be sure. You were recptive to the discussion of that puck you missed on the cover, so I know you still want to learn. You definitely have improved, so don;t think you haven't. Your skating and edges are better, as is your control and movements. You had a good understanding of angles to start with. However, when you start at the bottom, you only can go up (and that's a statement that applies to all of us who began playing goal, not that you sucked). You can make large improvements in a short period of time as you figure the big things out. But once that happens, you have to be willing to fix the smaller things to continue to improve. And that's where I think you've hit a snag. You got better quickly, so you felt that you should have kept getting better and haven't. Unfortunately, goalie is a position that relies on the small things. The struggles you are having now are because of the things you haven't improved since you started, mainly your edge control, butterfly, and movements/recoveries. I know you have limitations, and an injury. But I wonder how much is you using those as an excuse or a crutch. The things you need to improve are tough, and will mean a lot of adjustment. When you're improving well, you don't feel the need to worry about them. Now you might. You need to start with your butterfly. I know you have flexibility issues. But I don't believe your struggle is as much with that as you think. Your issue is with instincts and tendencies. Like Tim Tebow and his bad mechanics, when you're in the thick of things and acting instinctually, you revert to bad habits. The biggest problem is that you pull your heels together when you drop down. You drop forward on your knees, bring your feet behind you, and sit your butt back over your feet. This is problematic because it locks you in place on the ice. You can no longer move laterally or get back to your feet without big movements. To move, you essentially have to put yourself into the correct position first. Why not cut that step out?! This is also expending a tremendous amount of energy to do. You're working harder, and getting tired faster. Efficiency is the name of the game with goaltending. You want to make as little extra movement as possible. You really need to focus on pushing your hips forward when you drop, instead of sitting down. Push your hips forward and bring your knees together, not forward. This will bring your feet out and put you into a more mobile position. It may not be a very wide butterfly. Mine isn't either. Even if your feet are straight back and not out at all, that will put your hips and weight in a better position than having them touching behind you like they are now. If you feel tightness with this, loosen up all the straps on the pads. You need to learn to get into a position where your weight is forward over your knees and not back over your feet. That may take practice, strength and flexibility training, coaching, and most likely a combination of that. But once you start, those things will take care of themselves. And i promise you that you will see an improvement in your game. You've hit a wall. To get over it, you have to find the small handholds and work harder. We're here to help you if you're willing to listen.

Two 55 Flex, 4 65 flex. Covert QR1's dressed as Dynasty HD1's.