marka

Howdy, Good. 🙂 I got in the habit of listening to it in the car last season and miss it now. It was just weird that I couldn't find anything about when its supposed to start up again. Made me wonder if it was gone for good or something. Mark

Howdy, Anyone know when / if the Hockey Central at Noon podcast will start back up? Mark

Howdy, Amazing how much "normal" shifts... I started out with this reffing thing last December as a way to still skate with my wife. Didn't plan to make money doing it. NEVER wanted to ref a kids game. Fast forward to yesterday. At this point I've got ~90 games in. Earned $3.6k (gross). Gotten certified with USA Hockey. And I reffed a kid's travel game. Something I was adamantly against doing. 🙂 It was fun though. I've mostly done beer league stuff (no stats, refs run the score board, running clock, etc.) I did do a couple informal-ish kids summer games. But this was my first game where I needed to see / report goals and assists, penalties, etc. Luckily it was a pretty easy game. I'd liked doing Squirt age stuff when I did those few kids games over the summer and this was no different. The pace isn't overwhelming (I did one highschool game as part of the summer stuff, and my brain just didn't process hockey that fast). Parents and coaches still seem to realize that these are 9 and 10 year olds. Etc. It was also nice that my partner was a good ref (Highschool senior kid of a guy I played with on a beer league team. He's been playing since he was 4. 🙂 Honestly though, the absolute best part of the whole thing is that they play music when the play is stopped. That rocked. Literally. 🙂 Just kinda struck me how different this is from where I started. It is very much still just a hobby / "something to do". But I've enjoyed learning more about it, getting better at it, etc. No question that a big part of how I got here was messing up my wrist in April and wanting to keep skating. Of those 90 games, 74 are from that point. I've still got a SHIT TON to learn to be anything like a good ref. And reading back over this thread I'm seeing plenty of stuff that I said I needed to get better at that I still 100% need to get WAY better at. But I see myself making progress and that's fun. Appreciate the advice I've gotten here! Mark

Howdy, Not fair to the other team. They paid to play too, and its the responsibility of your team to show up with enough players to give them one. Mark

Howdy, I would say a little more bent, yes. Trying to do it with knees vs. back, but it ends up with both. For sure a bit of an adjustment period, but after not playing for 3-ish months or whatever it was, there was an adjustment period anyway. Its about 6" shorter, btw. I notice it most in terms of reaching out for poke checks or to knock the puck down / keep it in the zone or something. I would say its also messed with how the flex of the stick feels to me. Hard to say if the lack of wrist pain is from the stick length, different knob, different wrist brace or just lots of rest. At this point I don't have much incentive to isolate each of those things to narrow it down. I'm just enjoying being able to play without my wrist hurting. My bigger focus is to see if I can get my wind back a little after months of doing nothing but "ref skating" 🙂 Mark

Howdy, So, the hard cast has come and gone. I can't say I'd recommend that... My wrist felt WAY worse coming out of the cast than it had going in. Holding my old joint in one position apparently let everything atrophy and degrade... Any sort of movement of the joint hurt. The only positive was that it hurt in different areas. Followed that up with a soft brace for 3 weeks or so. Some of the pain went away with time. For the last week of the soft brace I also started doing wrist exercises from the PT I'd done prior to the hard cast. Still hurt, still in places in/on my wrist that were different from before. Saw the doc again last Wednesday and we agreed that I should just start playing and see what it felt like. My hope was that the pain now is due to being in the cast but the pain from the tear would be healed up with all the rest. So played Friday and... No pain! Played the whole game without any twinges or anything else. 🙂 Followed that up with a game last night and the same thing. 🙂 I'm playing with a shorter stick, that large knob, and a shock doctor 824 3 strap wrist support. The wrist support isn't super bulky, but I like pretty tight gloves (14" QRL / QRL Pro), so I ended up buying a single right hand 15" Bauer glove on ebay and removing the back hand padding to get that to fit. So in terms of where I'm at today, its sorta the opposite of how this started out... My wrist (and now hand... Maybe from the big knob?) now ache some when I'm not playing hockey, but when I'm playing they feel fine. So... Progress! Mark

Howdy, Depends. The short answer is to just do what the owners manual tells you to do. Actual engineers for the thing you're using almost always beat Google. Mark

Howdy, Call / email them and ask? Are you continental US? Estimated shipping to me in Ohio is $15 on a pair of gloves. Mark

Howdy, Glad you guys were able to move down there to spend time with your mom. Hoping things go as well as they can for you and her! And yeah, watch out for stray hurricanes. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I mean, yeah, blue is better than red, but the purpose of either is still to stick the threads together and prevent them from backing out. If your goal is to stop corrosion, use a little oil on the threads, anti-seize, or a product designed to do that. Blue Loctite isn't that. Mark

Howdy, If he loctite's the screw into the t-nut, it'll make it worse, not better. For the OP... you need to increase the friction between the t-nut and the helmet itself. You could maybe try using epoxy to glue the t-nut in place (let it fully dry before putting a screw into the t-nut, but mostly I would just go with "get to the back of the t-nut when it happens again". Mark

Howdy, No. Seems to be a "wear this brace and we'll check in 3 weeks" thing. I'm doing some stretching exercises this week to try and get some range of motion back, then I'll start doing some resistance band exercises. If I can get it back to at least what it was pre-cast, I'll play and try to just manage the pain. Mark

Howdy, I certainly didn't expect my wrist to feel WAY THE FUCK WORSE. Maybe unrealistic. I'm guessing the pain is from other things (ligaments / tendons / whatever) than the TFCC tear, just because they've been immobile for so long. Still sucks. Mark

Howdy, That screams "wear a thicker sock" etc. to me. Mark

Howdy, Per my wrist tendinitis thread where it turned into actually being a TFCC Tear, I've been in a cast for just under 4 weeks. Got it off today. Was hoping maybe I'd be playing pickup tomorrow. Uh... No. Another 3 weeks in a brace and even if that wasn't the Dr. recommendation my wrist feels like pounded shit. Crazy, CRAZY stiff and sore when its flexed beyond what the cast allowed. Going to work on gentle stretches for a while and then hopefully wrist exercises if the stretching helps, but apparently I won't be playing any time soon. 😞 Mark

Howdy, That looks great, but I wasn't able to find anyone selling it in the US? Mark

Howdy, When I didn't get much response, I ordered finger tape from Amazon. I got the .3" version the other day and its pretty narrow... Not sure if its too narrow or not. Otherwise it seems roughly equivalent to hockey tape. Because I thought it would be a little too narrow, I then ordered some actual 1/2" athletic tape. Should be here today. Unfortunately my wrist is casted up at the moment, so I can't actually do a knob and go try either out immediately. 😞 Mark

Howdy, Pro Hockey Life in Vaughan Mills north of Toronto is the biggest hockey store I've ever been in. No clue on what they have in stock for ref equipment however. https://www.prohockeylife.com/pages/store-vaughan-mills-ontario?utm_source=Organic Search&utm_medium=LSS Mark

Howdy, Are there any sources for 1/2" hockey tape? I want to use that for knobs on sticks. Tearing 1" tape always leaves sticky thread hangers / whatever. I haven't found any hockey tape that's 1/2", but I have found 'finger tape' for rock climbing that looks to be 1/2" athletic tape... Same thing basically? Or do I just need to suck it up? 🙂 Mark

Howdy, My experience with the 7092 GIRDLE is that the tail bone protection is pretty good. That's what I currently use as someone wanting good protection for that area and my hips both. Easton Pro 15 pants are freaking tanks. Lots of protection and lots of weight. I protect the stomach area with lots of built in fat. 🙂 Seriously, Monty22 has it right in my limited experience. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I've not heard of adult rental gear around here. You could maybe piece something together from lost and founds... 🙂 There's nothing much at the PPG rink. I think there are some private penguins alum type things, but not much for mortals. RMU Island Sports Complex is fairly easy to get to from downtown (with a car). You might call them and ask about rental gear and pickup. Not sure what they've got going on there. https://www.rmuislandsports.com/ Baierl Ice Complex is a little further away, but there's always some hockey available. I don't think there's any rental gear though. http://www.nextstephockey.com/view/baierlicecomplex There's other rinks around as well. In terms of shops, KO is what I'd recommend. South of the city. They usually have some prostock stuff and are probably the biggest shop around. http://kosports.com/ Mark

Howdy, Get her out there with you. Worked for me. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, So yeah, you're fine. Stop making excuses and go play. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, So, officially a TFCC tear, not tendinitis. In a hard cast for a month to see if it'll heal while its really immobile before surgery is considered. Mark

Howdy, How is this holder the giant step forward that folks were talking about? It looks like just another holder with a quick release? Is the pitch adjustable, is it way lighter, or ?? Mark