marka

Howdy, FWIW, I like tighter gloves and I've been really happy with the Warrior QRL and QRL Pro. I wear a 14" in those. I also found a deal on some Warrior QRE Pros (the next generation) and got them in a 14". Same feel around my hand, but the fingers were a little too short for me and a 15" fit better. But maybe that's just right for you? Mark

Howdy, That sorta logic must be why all the teams in the NHL set their ticket prices every year in order of how the teams finished the previous season. That way nobody ever pays more to watch worse hockey. 🙂 Look, pro sports is an entertainment business. My take is that to me, its worth a similar amount to go watch 2nd tier men's hockey (AHL) as it would be to watch the top tier of women's hockey. Others are going to have different value systems. I really hope the nhl or someone else with big pockets gets behind women's hockey though, so that we can find out whether or not folks actually want to watch women's hockey if its marketed decently. My guess is that enough would to make an AHL / ECHL level budget work. Mark

Howdy, Well, the obvious answer is that one group is the best women that play hockey (with many probably the best women players ever) and the other group is a bunch of teenage boys? So if you're a 12 year old girl who loves hockey, which group are you bugging your parents to go see? I don't see any reason that the top level women's professional hockey organization shouldn't be able to price their games, draw fans, have player salaries, etc. etc. like AHL teams, at least if we're looking past the startup years. Mark

Howdy, If the blade is centered in the holder and you've been skating on 272 already, I'd give it a go. Doesn't sound like any more of a risk of something bad happening than it would be changing from 272 runners to 280 runners. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I really hope there's some backdoor deals being made between the NHL, the players, and maybe the NWHL. I don't see any reason this couldn't be like women's tennis, women's golf, etc. The NHL has big enough pockets to get it through the "there's no audience because there's not an accessible product and there isn't an accessible product because there's no audience" phase. They also have motivation to grow hockey in general, as long as they're taking the long view. Mark

Howdy, It would be really interesting to see how VT's results changed as a function of fit. Seems like it would be fairly easy for them to test as well, since helmets are adjustable. I don't know what would happen. I can convince myself either way. 🙂 I'm not convinced that fit is as important as some here think it is (in terms of protection... Obviously its important in terms of comfort and distraction). But I'm not convinced its not either. Mark

Howdy, You missed a step or two. I.e.: "but if we hit this other helmet exactly the same way, significantly less force is associated" "does that mean that helmet is better?" "Maybe? It means that for that type of impact, less force gets transmitted to the head which is likely a good thing, but there are other factors to consider as well." "But what if that helmet is uncomfortable and looks ugly?" "Sounds like some of those other factors bud. Good luck. Be sure to rant and rave on the internet either way though!" Mark

Howdy, I agree that there's no new information here, on either side. However: What they actually say is "Helmets with more stars provide a reduction in concussion risk compared to helmets with less stars." Along with the lawyer words: "Any player in any sport can sustain a head injury with even the very best head protection. This analysis is based on data trends and probabilities, and therefore a specific person’s risk may vary. This variation is likely dominated by genetic differences, health history, and impact factors such as muscle activation." Mark

Howdy, I would get the one that fit my feet the best. A "good deal" is only a good deal if its for something that works for your feet. Mark

Howdy, Assuming the guy isn't the rink owner, a better approach might be to share it with the rinks in question. I wouldn't expect much though. I'd do it as more of a "just so you know, this guy is hurting the community and I thought you might care." kinda thing. You're unlikely to change an asshole. But the people that control ice time have a little more leverage. I also wouldn't throw an entire region under the bus because of a few assholes that are in the exact wrong position. FWIW. Mark

Howdy, If you're ditching the holders anyway, perhaps some judicious cutting / grinding would help? Where you go from there will depend on how well the adhesive is bonded to the boot. If its really on there, I'd probably just sand it down until it was just a very, very thin layer. Seems like it will be tedious / time consuming. May not be worth it if time is turning into money in some manner. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, Warrior Pro bag here too, and similar issues. The piping on the outside is just cosmetic, but the inside mesh pockets being torn is irritating. One of my skate pockets is mostly useless and all of the side mesh pockets have the bottoms ripped out at this point and stuff migrates out into the main compartment. Having said that, when I finally get sick of it I dunno what I'll get. $crazy for a Pacific Rink or something is a hard pill to swallow. Mark

Howdy, If you can get a Pelican case for half the cost that holds the Sparx, there's no question at all that that's what I'd do. Those are great cases. You're going to have to configure you're own foam setup (either the packing foam it shipped in or pick and pluck foam I'd imagine). Mark

Howdy, So... Been occasionally reffing here and there. Slowly getting better at stuff, still have quite a ways to go. A thing I particularly suck at is recognizing a penalty. And I suck even more about mentally marking and remembering who it was on. Same thing in terms of "who scored and assisted?", but the adult league I ref with doesn't track that, so I sidestep that problem. I'm pretty comfortable with positioning now in a 2 ref system. Starting to be better about watching the players vs. just the puck. Anyway, I reffed my first upper level game last night. B League game here in Pgh, which is the highest level we have in the organization I play/ref with. The guy that runs the league was out of ref options and he talked me into doing it despite me not thinking it would be a good idea. I'm glad he did... It was quite a bit of fun. The play was a LOT faster, so I was skating more and harder which was great. It wasn't so fast that I couldn't keep up, but was fast enough that I stayed warmed up and loose vs. the lower level games I've been doing where you don't skate as much and then tighten up some. It was also a lot easier to read the play, since players typically made decent passes / didn't fumble fuck the puck. So, for instance, if I was at the blue line and a defensive player had the puck on their stick without much pressure exiting the zone, I could cheat off the line since they were unlikely to turn the puck over stupidly. I definitely needed to be better about not being in the way... With the players moving faster and able to change directions much quicker, I needed to be better about reading where they were going and more quickly getting out of their way. It wasn't horrifically bad (I don't think), but for sure there were too many times that a player had to abruptly change direction to avoid me (usually away from the play, when their attention was up ice, not so much where they were going). Also need to be better about dropping the puck. In the lower leagues they're not as keyed into any movement of my arm at all. So I adapted to that and all, but frequently when I'd drop the puck it wouldn't land flat since I was dropping it in one motion from my waist line and I'm just not very good at that yet. I blew one covering the puck call pretty badly... I was on the side of the net at home base, the puck/offensive player went to the net and the goalie was down covering that side. I got screened just a touch and when that player moved through I saw the goalie down with blocker and stick cemented to the side of the net like he was covering the puck, so I blew it dead... With the whistle sounding just as the puck / player emerge into my vision from the other side of the net. Sigh. The guys seemed pretty understanding about it, which was nice. Anyway... Despite some serious misgivings I had a good time doing it. We'll see if I get any feedback from the other ref / teams via the league organizer as to just how awful I was but I'd do it again for sure, if they wanted me to. Mark

Howdy, If someone had offered me a bet that the Pens and Tampa would be 0-fer in the first three games I'd have lost A LOT of money... Damn. Mark

Howdy, Their performance over the past couple seasons makes me wonder just how important Tocchet was. Mark

Howdy, Well, I don't think anyone saw the Pens getting blanked in this series, but at this point its hard to see how it goes any other way. Mark

Howdy, I really like the True A4.5 for this kinda thing. ~$150 full retail, with previous clearance versions around $100 or so. If I hadn't decided I wanted a P28-ish curve with a closed toe, I'll still be using them. As it is, only CCM makes that. And to be fair, the clearance SuperTacks 2.0 I'm using now is a stick I really like, but it can be hard to find clearance stuff in the pattern / flex you want, etc. Mark

Howdy, Sorry to read that. It certainly seems like you might have suffered from some self inflicted wounds in your saga, but its unfortunate that True wasn't able to work with you to come up with a solution anyway. Good luck with the CCM/other options. Mark

Howdy, This one. You should also spell "resin" and "extreme" correctly in your marketing blurb. Good marketing / spelling is not, of course, a requirement for developing a revolutionary new stick technology. But its an indicator for those of us that have no other information to evaluate by. Mark

Howdy, You guys dealing with the medical stuff... Damn. I can't imagine. I also don't know what to say about it other than "good luck" and that I'm thinking of you. Keep fighting! Mark

Howdy, I've seen stuff like that in beginner leagues where its more of a group "do over" type of decision. But never in anything particularly competitive. Is this the reason for the FB post? Mark

Howdy, Link to VT saying that that a better rating doesn't reduce the risk of concussion? I think actually measuring the amount of force that gets transmitted to the head for a given impact is one of the few objective ways to evaluate a helmet's performance and IIRC the results from their football stuff show a correlation between better ratings and reduced concussions. That obviously shouldn't be the ONLY metric folks use to pick out a helmet, however. I don't have any need to do this again either, but also didn't want the loud voices in the room drowning out everyone. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Any coupons for us MSH folks? Mark

Howdy, That looks really interesting! A couple questions... What sort of finish can you expect from this? What's the cutter's width and actual diameter? Or, stated another way, for a given runner width, what's the actual 'radius' / profile of the hollow being cut into the runner? It seems like this would have to have the center of the hollow more shallow than a true traditional ROH cut, right? It seems like it would almost be a bit of a flat bottom style sharpening. In terms of life, are you estimating sharpening 25 pairs of skates, or 12.5 pairs of skates? Is the cutter element replaceable? Mark