IPv6Freely

I really want to try on the 310. The resistance was by far the most comfortable helmet I'd ever put on and if these new models are even close to feeling like that I'd be a very happy camper. Though still debating whether I'll ever be skating out again...

Honestly, I find them to be kind of heavy compared to the big two brands. I don't have numbers to back that up, I just know that when I pick up a pair of CCM or Bauer skates I'm shocked by how light they feel. That said, they fit so damn well I don't even notice.

Yea a friend of mine bought a ton of it back when it wasn't worth anything. Lucky bastard.

No.

Well, with the exception of the last goal against that was absolutely brutal (but hey, it made things exciting!) this was one of my better games. Square making easy saves easily, and scrambling when I needed to. Shutting the door with 1.1 seconds left was a huge highlight for me. Now we're off to the finals to go for our 4th straight championship title.

That's pretty bad.

You explained my point much better than I was able to. If you're going to keep the name that has a negative connotation to it, then you have to accept that you have an uphill climb ahead of you. Hopefully they change opinions quickly and manage to stick around.

No special coupons HOWEVER current owners should be able to give you a referral code for $25 off.

It's not a competition.

I agree completely!

I know.

Did you buy them all or...?

As much as I've always argued against the "only domestically made products can be of high quality" suggestion, that doesn't help them in their battle against their reputation.

This sucks :(

Understatement of the year! I'm going to see if a couple of my teammates would hit a stick time with me, if I can find time to get to one myself.

While we're on the topic of confidence and frustration, here's last nights game. I thought it was going to be one of "those nights" after the first period. It wasn't pretty by me or my defencemen but if I'd made a save in there it would have been a different story. Ended up winning 5-4, though the other team kind of got robbed in the last 30 seconds by the refs.

I'm trying to be realistic, but that's where I'm struggling. I'm happy with being a good D5 goalie. I won't ever be playing in D4 or higher so that doesn't really matter to me. And I think that's actually part of the issue with the current confidence level. I think I've mentioned it before... I'm not used to doing things I'm not good at. Rarely GREAT at, but pretty much always good at. So that makes things even more frustrating. Hills sent me some IMs yesterday of things to try so I need to get on that. What I really need is to find a stick time session that I can get into with my gear and a gopro. I totally agree with you though that playing at lower levels is awful. I used to play in a rookie league of beginners and THAT can make you look foolish pretty easily. Like, PLEASE just shoot the puck hard so I can make an easy save... lol.

So I'm going to need to re-read this a couple times (when I'm actually not at work) to digest it all, however I do have one question on the quoted bit. Can you clarify what you mean? I'm having a hard time visualizing.

This is from pickup on 4/25. I haven't had time (as I mentioned in the above post) to actually edit the video until this morning. Not the best night from a goaltending perspective but a really fun time with the tuesday night guys. This included the birthday celebration of one of our guys who just turned 82. He had photographers there and we had some fun in the first 10 minutes (watch the video!) and got some photos. He had cake afterwards :) He actually had each of us hold up a sign with our name on it and got photos of all of us "for when [he] can't remember who the hell [we] are"

Hi @psulion22, thanks for the reply. Where are you getting that impression from? I'm well aware of the level I'm at and that I'm just a beginner. I definitely don't think I'm good at this (though I DO think I got better at goalie in 6 months than I did as a skater in the 6 years prior to that... I was never good skating out!) I want any and all critiques and suggestions. Some of them will be "yes I know I need to work on that" and some things will be stuff that I didn't notice I was doing. I agree butterfly is one of my biggest issues. And you're right that when it comes time to make a save I'm definitely just doing what I have to do to stop the puck without any regard to technique. Or, to put it another way, the technique hasn't had enough reps yet for it to BECOME the instinctual reaction. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many people tell me the exact same thing (the "drive the knees to the ice" thing) I still can't do it. Even when not pressured and when focusing specifically on that movement. I wish there were better videos on how to do it properly. All the instructional videos just say the same thing and make it sound like its something that should be easy to "just do". You mention to push the hips forward and bring the knees together. The part I'm struggling with is how am I supposed to get my knees together without also getting my feet together? I'm definitely not able to put my knees together with my feet apart. My angles are generally okay as you've said, and depth is not USUALLY a problem, though I do sometimes fall prey to not being in the right place. Even bigger than the butterfly seems to be my general ability to use both sides of my body. For example, while in the butterfly I can use my left foot to push me across the ice. Not very well, and I still can't decide if its that my pads don't slide well or if my technique sucks, but I CAN do it. Going the other direction... not at all. If I can even get my blade planted AT ALL (rare), I just end up spinning. To take it a step further, if I need to get across the ice quickly I can drop my right knee down and push across in one motion, moving left to right. Going the other direction, I can't do it. I literally can't. Again, even during warmups where I'm specifically trying to do it correctly, my brain says to go left knee down first and the body kind of hesitates before going right knee down. I truly can't fathom why I'm having this trouble getting my body to do simple movements. I need to take some video during a stick time or something, but finding the time to go to those is almost impossible. I spend pretty much all day every day at work now... When it comes to games there's obviously no time to work on anything. Pickups I generally try to focus on improving one thing each week but by the half way point my lower back hurts so much I'm just trying to make it through. I also figured out its not actually my back that hurts so much as the complete lack of flexibility is causing my back to take the brunt of every movement. I do appreciate the feedback and will try to work on the flexibility because that's pretty much the cause of all my issues, including the simple butterfly. I haven't been to a pickup since 4/25. It's really more the games though that are the issue since getting scored on and losing the game because I let in a bad goal is really becoming difficult for me to handle mentally. I don't know why. But I really think it's the honeymoon thing like I said. At this point I EXPECT to make those saves. Great goals are one thing but I get really frustrated with myself when I let in something that should be an easy save. A slapshot from the blue line with no traffic should NEVER go in! I'm very slow in my butterfly and in movements in general. I've never been a very good skater so that isn't helping. There are definitely times I'll shuffle on my knees instead of sliding, generally either when I'm tired (in the case of pickup) or when i'm not sure I have enough time to get back up (in games). It's usually in a situation where I'm moving right to left (which I can't do pushes very well for) and don't have enough time to get up. All in all, my flexibility is still killing me. And I'm having a terrible time finding time to work on it. 12 hour days 5-6 days a week at work are brutal. I get home, eat, and go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Hopefully work eventually calms down.

Let's go ahead and get back on topic. There are plenty of other threads to boast about how cool it is to not be fully protected.

Many places require full gear. There's also nothing wrong with it.

Yep everything is built into the skate, which means the footbed is not at all for fit and pretty much just for comfort.

If the skate is 360 custom, the footbed doesn't need to be. I use SIDAS in mine, just because I happened to have them already. I honestly don't really care for them anyway, and they're starting to lose their padding as well.

Usually 11 because that's what my dad wore, or 13 because that's what I used to wear in my baseball playing days. Everyone said it was unlucky so I used to wear it to show it wasn't ;) In goal I wear 29, for Felix Potvin.