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Truth be told, I don't know of any belly flap that has truly been worth a damn other than back when Warrior added the extra (sixpack) protection in it a few years back. I personally had my pants modified with the Small Nash pad and its been great.

For me the 1x lite, adv and qrl were the best sticks I’ve used. Not surprised they have similar tapers.

I have tried some older Vapor sticks, but I can't say for sure if it was the 1X lite. However looking at the specs, it's 397g. That's the sweet spot of light enough and still durable. You don't need more and I rather have that, than a new $400 stick that shoots great for 10 shots then dies. Sticks have fallen off a cliff in the chase of being light, I've never seen sticks break so often as they do now. There are 1-3 sticks breaking almost every NHL game I watch, which is pretty crazy because it is a new stick for basically every or every few games, it's not high mileage sticks that have been worn down.

I'm with @xstartxtodayx. Most of the latest and greatest is just rearranging the deck chairs. Great for marketing, but the ship is still the same. The viability of Pro's lineup is strong evidence if not proof of this. If the technology were clearly superior between 2005, 2015, and 2025 sticks, Pro's OG lineup would show it. The big inflection point remains packaging the T-Flex + composite blade as a unit in the Synergy. Since then, any changes have been more subtle than substantial. To answer the main question, though I haven't tried a ton of different lines, the one stick did just work for me off the shelf a bit better than anything else I've had was RibCor2. It just had a combination of soft blade feel when puck handling with good pop on shots and, most importantly, perfect balance.

Past 10 years all seem the same to me stickwise, not much has changed other than hype, maybe 25+ years ago into the 2 piece generation I'd say the Z-Bubble for sure, the classic green one was my go-to. Before that in the wood generation of the mid 90's I'd have to say the Victoriaville 4050 since it was one of the first sticks I could flex since it was one of the more whippy sticks.

I loved the Bauer 1x Lite and ADV. For me they just worked

Yeah, but even preference has to be correlated to performance if you know what I mean. Especially with more inexperienced players. Or there is a delay between the initial feeling of a new profile (which may feel uncomfortable and therefore not preferred) and X hours where it becomes comfortable and results in better performance. Just a long winded way of saying I don’t think there is currently a good way to prescribe profiles for the majority of players.

This was an early xmas gift for myself. I picked up these gloves almost 2 years ago for around $20, the palms had some holes, loops were cut, and the gussets were disintegrating. I sent them to ITR hockey so he could work some magic, had him put some airknit gussets and AX Suede palms with a Kovy overlay, they feel awesome now. Untitled by Jon Schusteritsch, on Flickr Untitled by Jon Schusteritsch, on Flickr

On sideline swap, sort by the size you need, and just take time browsing. There’s a ton of good pants from college, juniors, and minors teams that are less expensive than ones with NHL branding. It takes some time to learn about what different codes mean, but you’ll good about yourself once you start to learn some of the codes and are able to visually identify stuff. Patience and paying attention are your friends. Resources are out there, but a lot of it is piecing together different info from different places.

There are various places online that you can get new pro stock pants, but I've only ever bought used ones on eBay or Sideline Swap. I've found it better to identify the model of pants you want, for example "CCM HP45", and search for that. If you only search for pro stock, you often are missing a good number of options. With both Sideline Swap and eBay you can set up alerts to get notified of new items that get listed that match what you are looking for. With a bit of patience, I've had good success getting specific model and color used pants still in good shape for under $100. You can pay $50-$100 more, but I'd rather save the money. And by "save the money" I mean fund other hockey equipment purchases. That being said, if you have your heart set on an exact color/version that is uncommon it can take a lot of patience and a lot more money depending on what it is (like specific outdoor game or specialty colorways).

I know what you mean, but there is no padding anywhere in that region, it is just the closure system, which is very thin. I bought the pants, I'll try to get a picture of it. There is less protection in that area. However, I do not think it will cause any big gaps. Last game (I paid more attention than I ever have to that region and) I noticed that the flap of the 3S pants overlap quite a bit with the extension pad (bottom) of my Ultrasonic shoulder pads, when you are in a skating position. Overall, the pants are very nice and I am happy with them.

To add to what Davideo posted above, I think the two areas you should be comparing are what I circled in yellow on the modified picture below.

It’s mostly just there for some cushion behind the belt buckle, so you’ll be fine. David Tomášek of the Edmonton oilers uses the Tackla Breezer 3D prozone girdle. https://tackla.eu/tuote/tackla-breezer-3d-prozone-icehockey-girdle-sr/ it has crazy amounts of padding everywhere except for the lower abdomen which is not padded at all.

I just tried an ACP Pro girdle last night and noticed it didn't have any padding there either, my Super Tacks one has a little something, but like swede said, I don't think that little padding there is doing much anyways. I didn't notice it missing while playing last night.

It’s totally uneccesary.. it’s just a piece of foam that actually don’t offer much protection anyway. I have the Supreme 2s pants which have a big belly flap, but i find it mostly in the way, and kinda restrict me in my skating, so i push it as far down as i can. My 12 year old son went from Vapor x900 lite pants which also have a big flap to Tackla Expp55 pants which don’t have any flap at all and also have a much lower cut front than other pants on the market. He is much more mobile in the lower cut tackla pants. And he plays D with most blocked shots on the team. He says, there is tension in the abs when skating, so the padding for the lower abdomen is uneccesary

If the place you shop has the big pro sharp cabinet setup, they may also have demo steel to try. Just ask.

I bit the bullet and ordered the tapered ones in my size (the 35% off clearance price deal was too good to pass up, basically paid half price for them). They fit just like the OG Jetspeeds before CCM offered the "Tapered/Regular" options, which is perfect for my foot. Went in and had them baked today by Dave aka beerleaguecaptain and I'll give them a shot on the ice tomorrow night, so far they feel awesome.

There is some research but not much. Years back someone here linked to some and at that time 9/10 showed the best performance. input him on 9/10 based on that as well as, regardless of the profile, he will have consistency. Just thinking it might be worth playing around with a second set. BTW, the scanner just spits out a category. It just said Quad so I assume that IT implies you should match to the skate size. Not that helpful, that would have been our first experiment anyway. And it would seem ProSharp has data they used to make recommendations to pros but still seems like some experimentation and collaboration at the end of the day.

It's very much in the spirit of MSH's DBs. The closest thing I've seen is Icehockey360.ru's measurements comparing boot and holder dimensions for the sizes he was trying: https://icehockey360.ru/baza-znanij/geometricheskie-parametry-stakanov/ It's on the older side now, and there were some surprises in there which makes me wonder about his methods. The general trend that emerges already in his measurements is that the industry was trending toward standardization. I think that process is now complete. True's new holder is supposed to be more in line with Bauer and CCM and I vaguely recall Warrior's skate representative saying on HockeyTutorial that their holder has the same pitch as the others. If those observations aren't mistaken, most of the value in the holder db would be to archive historical idiosyncrasies which have gone the way of the cookie cutter in recent years.

Reviving this thread as I pulled the trigger on Tackla 9000 pants recently. I'm almost 6' - 180lbs. Went with Med-50 Tackla size. This thing fits like a glove. My issue with other pants brands (CCM-BAUER) was the fit was too loose on hips and thighs. Pants felt unstable when skating at higher speeds. Quality seems pretty great for a $119cad pants (regular price advertised $200). Got to say I'm super happy so far. Protection is generous on hips but not annoying at all. Probably not the lightest, but weight isn't an issue.

Round 2.