marka

Howdy, Usually a dinner/get together the night before and the night of the game, generally later in the evenings for both (at least for an old man like me). I would say at these events the ice time / manufacturer demo / whatever is roughly half of the experience for me, with the other half being those get togethers or other activities (like if you've got family with you and do the tourist thing or something). "Worth it" is kinda a personal thing. Its worth it to me. Mark

Howdy, PP90 is a Medium. I would say "average"? For me, what I notice is the girdle itself (which is fairly tight) vs. the shell. I don't really look in mirrors with this stuff so unless someone says something on the bench like "yo, what's up with that weirdass shell?" I don't know how it looks... 😉 Sorry I can't be much help here. Mark

Howdy, Whoa! So routine tests led to them finding that vs. any type of episode/symptoms? That sounds actually fairly lucky if so? Any restrictions on activities or anything? Mark

Howdy, Still jealous of all that empty ice. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I also have a 7092 girdle. I can't say I've ever really noticed how tight or loose the shell was particularly, so I may not be the best example for you. The shells I like the most are the Warrior pro stock ones with the Velcro / pull strap front. I have a medium girdle and use either the Medium or Large shells interchangeably. 5'10", 190 lbs, 35" waist. I have a CCM PP90 prostock as well that I like about as much as the Warrior. Similar deal, velcro front closure with a pull strap. Also a couple Bauer MX3 Supreme shells. Same thing... Velcro front closure with a pullstrap. Those have a clip buckle for the pull strap. I like these fine as well. I don't leave the shell attached to the girdle / don't attach it when I wear it, so I don't know anything about attaching any of them to the girdle itself. I can't say that I've noticed any of the shells I've ever worn restricting my movements. But I'm old and slow, so that might be more related to that than anything else. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Yep, should be good. 🙂 Assuming we're not all sick. 😕 Mark

Howdy, Sorry to read about your son's head injury! Hopefully no long term effects. I really wish that manufacturers would prioritize protection over looks/weight/gimmicks and then back that up with published testing results. The poor VT testing results and this anecdotal report have certainly put an end to any interest I had in the new True lid, despite my interest in the MIPS system. Mark

Howdy, I'm still just amazed that someone has the same stick they want to use four years later. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Yeah, agreed with Mike about that shin not being wide enough for you. If it were me, I'd break out the heat gun and a cylinder with a little bigger diameter or something to form the plastic a bit and see if I could make it a little wider. Might end up destroying the pad if you goof it up, but its not like its working for you the way it is, so you don't have a lot to lose... I would remove as much padding as I could easily, heat the whole pad in the areas where I wanted it wider, then press it down onto the cylinder and keep it there until it cooled. I would use just enough heat to make it a little more pliable. If it 'sprang back' after cooling, I'd heat it while it was on the cylinder/form. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, those answers feel right to me (not that I have the hockey history that most here do). But I'm not finding that stuff in the rulebook. This rule is about the puck going out of play: https://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/page/show/1084689-rule-631-puck-out-of-bounds-or-unplayable And this is about hand passes: https://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/page/show/1084666-rule-618-handling-puck-with-hands The handpass rule specifically says "directly to a teammate"... Nothing about the other team getting possession or whatever. It seems like if a deflection out of play counts as a 'last play' (and I can certainly see that), it ought to count if its a deflection off a goaltender's pads too, right? And therefore that wouldn't be a handpass? I'm asking because I frequently struggle to find the "of course" answers to weird situations like this in the actual black and white rule book. Which I'm pretty sure is more an indication that I don't know how to read the book, more than anything else. And which I'd like to get better at, because I hate not knowing the underlying rules in those weird situations. Mark

Howdy, So, sorta morphing this into my "ask weird rules questions" thread... Does a deflection count as a "play"? I ask for two situations... 1) a shot is taken from the neutral zone, with all offensive players on-sides. It deflects off a defenseman in the offensive zone, going out of play. Face off location is supposed to be determined by the last play, but I'm not sure if the shot is the last play or the deflection is. 2) offensive player in the offensive zone bats the puck with his hand. Puck deflects off the goalie's pads, to another offensive player. Hand pass or not? If you REALLY want to help me out, you could specify which USA hockey rule applies with your answer. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I'm probably missing something here but it seems like you should be able to tell what part of the shin guard is contacting what part of your leg 'early' and causing the shin guard to sit out away from your leg too much. Which part is that? Can you take some pics of the shin guard on your leg without socks/tape (and maybe without the skates on either)? Mark

Howdy, I knew that for the retail stuff, but I missed that they were doing that for the pro ranks as well. Mark

Howdy, Thought this was an interesting article: https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/bruins/2020/02/08/chinasticks/Nq3exRpRtqwLTA5wyawYEI/story.html I was surprised to learn that CCM & Bauer made their pro stuff in China now? Also curious if the slowdown might extend any new equipment debuts / whatever. Mark

Howdy, Thinking the chances of legal Step blades for trigger holders have gone down even more and that Step holders aren't going to be around long. But I don't really know anything. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Mako skates having rivets loosen up seems to be pretty common. I've seen lots of mentions about it and I know my makos do it too. As to how often they can be replaced, it depends on if the shop screws something up during the process, if you catch it early enough so that the holder doesn't get beat up while its loose, etc. I will say that one thing that helped me was to get more rivets replaced with coppers. The coppers seem to clamp better and not suffer the same loosening issues. Mark

Howdy, "Vulcanized rubber" covers a heck of a lot of ground... For instance, all tires are vulcanized, but some remain really soft in winter weather and some get so hard they will literally crack instead of flex (racing tires). This product looks interesting, but I'm not sure its "$15 to try something I'm not sure I want/need" interesting. Mark

Howdy, I think everyone is going to have different patterns for usage. And what works for you is going to depend on what steel, what hollow, how sensitive you are, etc. etc. For me (regular Step steel, 3/4 Fire hollow), I don't notice a difference in the way my skates feel for say the first 6 to 8 hours or so on the ice. Lately what I've been doing is making 3 passes every 6 to 10 hours or so. I'm not religious about it. If I haven't sharpened for a while and I have a game, I'll probably throw them on there. If I'm just reffing, I probably won't. Mark

Howdy, I bet Sean would give you lessons after the morning skate on Thursday... Mark

Howdy, Is it possible to ban users from specific threads? Mark

Howdy, Well, I guess when Sparx stops selling overseas, we'll know why. Mark

Howdy, From the little I've seen, used rings sell pretty quick, at least on ebay. I casually keep an eye out for a deal on weird ones like a 3/8", just in case I have crazy friend that wants to try it or something, but I very rarely see used rings get listed on ebay and they always seem to sell fairly quickly for not enough off of "new from Sparx" for me to want to deal with a rando. Which is all a long way to say... I bet if you list it here it'd sell pretty quick. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Oh and yes, super car or not doesn't really matter a lot here. Any 'super car' made for normal road use in the USA will run just fine on 93 octane fuel / is designed & engineered to use that fuel. Racing fuel is (99%) for _actual_ racing. Mark

Howdy, Generally speaking, additional octane for an engine that doesn't need it actually hurts performance, vs. helping it. Short version, its extremely unlikely to help your car's performance and might have negative effects. Octane is a measurement of the resistance to detonation, which is another way of saying that its slower/requires more energy to ignite as octane goes up. The reason some racing engines require higher octane fuel is that they have a significantly higher compression ratio than 'normal' engine. That higher amount of compression can inadvertenly ignite the fuel mixture of a lower octane fuel, so racing fuel is used that resists that early ignition / detonation better. If your engine isn't a very high compression racing engine, there's no need for the higher octane fuel and if there is any effect, its that it will slightly hurt performance. Having said that... The amount of timing advance can also play into performance. More advance == more performance, at least up to a point. The issue with more advance is that again, it can cause detonation and higher octane can help limit that. So _if_ your engine has enough compression _and_ it has tuning/sensors that can take advantage of higher than normal octane fuel, you _might_ see a performance benefit from increasing octane over the normal 93 'super' level. But its more likely that none of that will apply and you'll just be burning up $10/gallon fuel that will have a negative effect if it has any effect at all. YMMV. Literally. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Grrr. Nothing like driving to the rink to find out that pickup has been cancelled. Small blessings. It was only 15 minutes away, I guess. Mark