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That kind of sounds like what McDavid uses for their padded clothing and sleeves. They sell small sheets of it at retail but it's pretty pricey stuff. http://www.mcdavidusa.com/athletic-trainer-hextm-tool-kit

@ktang ALWAYS do a new hollow at a time where you can get used to it. Stick and puck (i.e. no scrimmages) and public sessions are when I try a new hollow. If the game isn't too important, then you could just try it then. But if it were me- I wouldn't do a new hollow in a game until you have a public session and a pickup or two under your belt.

Any progress is good though. Keep trucking through. I ended up playing a terrible game last night and since it was so bad I had a lot to critique myself on. So perhaps it'll be helpful. This was by far one of my worst of the year and easily the worst game of the summer. Since it was so bad I'll go through the breakdown below. https://gfycat.com/HandyBlandLacewing Decent blocker save while deflecting it to the corner out of danger, looks like my rebound control is good this game. https://gfycat.com/SpanishBackAplomadofalcon I REALLY have to start working on my hands after I badly whiff on this shot and have been struggling lately. I find when one part of my game becomes good and I get confident in it (right now that is positioning) I really start to fail and lose confidence in another (glove saves). I never track the puck into my glove and my positioning for it was far too close to my body instead of out front. https://gfycat.com/DarkWellwornIrishwolfhound Coming off that horrible goal I wanted to be aggressive and ensure I didn't let anything squeak by me. With no real threat coming in front of the net and a decent shooter coming down I decided to just shut off the entire short side with a post over-lapping butterfly and the shooter put it right into my pants. The only real play here was to try a wrap around, but from that close it does look like the 5-hole is open but I manage to get down in time and I had defense covering the other post. https://gfycat.com/AthleticOrderlyCockatiel I do a pretty good job here coming from the RVH to push out more to the middle to challenge to stop a pretty good save right in my chest. This shooter has given me difficulties in my normal league so I did a decent job not getting locked to the post. He might have had some room blocker side but I thought I played it pretty well. https://gfycat.com/FluidSlowCranefly The team I am playing for has a tendency to block shots or try to get in the way, and it usually ends up with me losing sight of the puck and that is exactly what happened here. I saw the shot when released and then lost it in #17, it gets deflected by his arm and I don't pick it up until far too late but luckily my post bails me out. https://gfycat.com/IllinformedGrouchyEyra I will say right away I should've gotten out of the RVH here and been on my feet. But like I said earlier this team tends to screen me a bit and with all the traffic and puck play being down low I figured it'd be better to just cut off the angle. I completely lose the puck through the sliding player and find it again just before it hits my glove. So it was a bad play but it worked out to be exactly how I figured it would. https://gfycat.com/RipeGeneralBabirusa Inactive hands again mean I fight this one off with my elbow/upper arm. Really should've been a pretty easy catch. https://gfycat.com/WholePinkIcelandicsheepdog Bad rebound control again. I should've slid into the shot to take it in my chest but I was nervous with the fairly open lane and opposition forward in front of the net. I make a pretty ugly blocker save and luckily the rebound bounces past any opponents as I put it right in front of the net. https://gfycat.com/DefiantGlisteningInvisiblerail Player coming in alone again, no real threat to the middle and he is so high and away even if I go down I feel I can recover to be set and square to a shot from the middle. I cover the angle fairly aggressively and drop into the butterfly to take away holes. This team seemed to shoot for the inside of my blocker a lot, so perhaps I was giving them some space blocker side, but it explains for the poor rebound control again here. https://gfycat.com/GregariousAdeptKodiakbear Right before this play one of their better players had a pretty open shot right between the hash marks, but he shot wide and the puck ended on the boards. On the shot I tried to direct it into the corner but it wasn't hard enough for me to do so and I believe I didn't get all of it and the puck got the top of my stick as well thus making the puck flutter to the glove side... and some good hand eye coordination bats it home. https://gfycat.com/DeliriousOpenIndianhare Another relative free lane to the net, but the defense does a good job removing any possibility of the shooter cutting back towards the middle. The shooter was also on the backhand so doesn't have too many options. I simply get low and cover all holes and make a stick save when the shooter tried to put it 5-hole. https://gfycat.com/DigitalBraveEasternnewt A deflection of the defense's stick leads to an awkward floating shot I try to bat away with my blocker. My recovery is really lazy and too slow here leading to an ugly VH save with my stick putting the puck behind the net. I should've been in the RVH here and made a much cleaner save. https://gfycat.com/YellowDecimalAntlion Relatively weak shot on net but with a player in front left alone in a dangerous position. I manage to get my glove on the initial shot but bobble it due to my poor hands, luckily I grab it out of the air before another goal from a flying rebound. https://gfycat.com/TautAdmiredCockerspaniel Right off the opening face off for the 3rd period and this happens. Again bad rebound control off the inside of my blocker, I would've been fine with the straight on rebound shot but defense slid to block it and I completely lost the puck and the shot. I think it deflected off of him and then my blocker and in. I over slid the rebound and wasn't perfectly square to the shot and left the blocker side open a bit. https://gfycat.com/ViciousWastefulGreatdane I dropped too early here but with how the game was going so far I didn't want another garbage goal. I actually got lucky with the pass that went out front, it hit a player skate and ended up hitting my knee block and staying between my pads. https://gfycat.com/LoneAthleticKangaroo Another flubbed shot to the blocker I fail to control, the rebound goes right to an opposing player and I screw up big time. I felt the puck was sliding 5-hole under my pad so I attempted to lift my leg in hopes of stopping it with my skate and you see the end result. This was a terrible decision and if I just stayed put and didn't overreact I probably would've saved it and covered it. https://gfycat.com/CompleteFixedBat Another bad rebound... but also another straight on shot with no real challenge. https://gfycat.com/SpottedWarmheartedBird Broken record but bad rebound. I should've pushed right instead of lunging but I was still in the "save" motion and the lunge was out of desperation... this team clearly had my number tonight. So yes, 6-3 loss while up 3-1 after the 1st and 3-2 after the 2nd period.

I think the best thing is that you can always you the trusted Sharpie to color over any blue you don't like. I know I did that for years with my Supremes. Would be cool if Bauer sold a black pen similar to Sharpie that did this.

Brag Alert!!! first game of the summer season Son pitched the first inning from 2 steps inside the rubber and was actually throwing some good hard strikes. At bat 4-4 ...he hit one into the gap and touched them all ... 1st career homerun!

I have made about four or five of them now for various people. Each time the design gets updated a little. It's much smaller and lighter now and has a suction cup to stick it to the glass.

So this past Tuesday I finally saw an orthopedic doctor (same one I saw for similar issues several years ago), he poked around at my knee for a bit and said "yeah, this is sort of concerning in an active guy your age, an x-ray won't tell me much, go get an MRI and we'll follow up." So I'm due to have an MRI on the 5th. Hockey player mentality, tho, while scheduling: "Hm, do I really want the 5th? That's my day off, I was going to play hockey ... wait wait wait no, idiot, we're going for an MRI to solve the problem of being IN PAIN WHILE PLAYING HOCKEY god. Schedule it." Hopefully though it's nothing serious and just needs some PT. I hope this continues to go quickly, because all the other muscles in my back and leg are locking up from trying to avoid the pain in my knee.

The first pair cracking I attributed to some extremely cold weather and being forced to leave my gear in a garage. The shop where I got them said the cracking was common and replaced them on the spot. This pair I had been rotating with my custom Superfeet and they just cracked out of the blue. I really like the speed plates but my footbeds cracking on a regular basis is not something I'm gonna mess with.