marka

Howdy, That sucks man. I hope you and your family can get through these times in the best way possible. You're in our thoughts. Mark

Howdy, First, there's no shame in cutting back. I mean, don't leave folks in the lurch, but don't keep doing stuff if you're not having fun at it either. The question is if you're not having fun because you think you suck or if its just not as fun as it was before to put in the time/energy and you wish you were doing other things. The only help for the 2nd one is to go do those other things and see if you prefer having your time spent there. But for the first one... I get the "not improving" frustration. I started playing a year and half ago and all of the easy to see big steps seem to be done. I was getting a little discouraged. Talked with my wife and other people some and they pointed out various small things that I take for granted now that I couldn't do as well six months ago. They were small enough things that I didn't think of them as "improvements", but once pointed out, I remembered being frustrated by not being able to do that stuff. And so now I look at smaller stuff when I'm looking for encouragement. Like lately I've been working a bit on elevating the puck on in close shots and playing with that in warmup for games, etc. I'm seeing a way that that works now, whereas before I just couldn't ever make it happen. Your "honeymoon period" is a great phrase. To me, the honeymoon period is when you're making huge strides every time out, having fun even if you totally suck, etc. I think that exists in any skill (it certainly does in motorsports, my other big addiction). The trick, for me, of going beyond the honeymoon period is to look for the smaller improvements that you ARE still making and accepting that those improvements still matter. Mark

Howdy, Seems like as good a place as any... Any of you Toronto folks checking this out? http://www.blogto.com/events/hockey-warehouse-clearance-sale/ Mark

Howdy, Not really equipment per se, but I thought some might find it cool... A buddy started doing "found metal item art" Mark

Howdy, Mine has been fine as well, at least in terms of "are my edges wildly off" type of stuff. I would need to have better measuring tools to determine whether this or the "real" edge checkers were more accurate. Obviously at a minimum it will be consistent, which is really the primary thing I cared about since I could reference the local pro shop's name brand tool. I would hope that the person building these has a fixture to afix the reference sticker on that takes into account how the magnet/angle is fixed to the piece. If the magnet / angle wasn't perpendicular to the cross piece, that could make the sticker look crooked, but actually be correct. Or it could be $30 measuring tool QA. :-) Mark

Howdy, Oh man, that one hurts just to see in the gif. :-( Mark

Howdy, Good to see the Pontiac Aztec design team is still getting paid by someone. :-) Just giving you some shit. I've never really cared about a vehicles looks vs. how good it is at its job. Mark

Howdy, Its the St. Paddy's Day jersey! Mark

Howdy, My son got to play an exhibition game at Quicken Loans arena yesterday. :-) He plays goalie and is just starting out despite being "old" at 10. The group he plays with is a local house league and this kinda came up outta the blue. He's been pretty ambivalent about hockey in general, and quit a different house team at the beginning of this past season, then didn't play at all for a few months. He just recently decided he'd like to go up and play with this local more laid back group. Anyway, I figured he wouldn't want to go to the exhibition game and would prefer the more low key approach. His only other 'real' game was a 0-16 or so complete drubbing that really hurt his confidence / enjoyment of the sport, back when he was part of the previous house league. Anyway, he finds out about the game and of course I was totally wrong and he really wants to go. We work out with the house league organizer that he'd go and be the backup goalie, just riding the pine. As the game gets closer, my son is more and more interested in playing, but gets that he's the backup. Anyway, yesterday to our complete surprise the organizer had decided to have both goalies (the other was a fill in from the local Squirt travel team) play! We knew none of this until we see our son skating out to start the 2nd period in net. I was a freaking wreck. The score at that point was 2-1, IIRC. Anyway, over the course of the 2nd period he got scored on 3 times. Two were fairly soft goals, but he didn't have much chance on the 3rd. We also scored some, and the 2nd period ends with the score tied at 4/4. I'm breathing a HUGE sign of relief at this point, because the other goalie is headed back out. :-) My son played ok... I think the best he ever has, but is obviously way behind either our other goalie or the other team's net minder. Still, he positioned himself better than I've seen before and was a little faster to try and cover the puck. Still not going down onto the ice soon enough to try and block shots with his pads, but for sure an incremental improvement over where he's been. Anyway, the other goalie starts the 3rd period and I relax and watch the game since my son is done. He's standing up at the boards, watching what's going on, and more into the game than I'd have ever expected too, which is awesome. Then he's skating out with about 5 minutes left in the game! With 30 seconds left on a penalty kill! What! Turns out the organizer had decided to split the goalie time equally between the two... Score was still 4/4. Game on the line. The kids had played WAY better than I'd expected, plus the other team wasn't as strong as I'd feared. But seeing my son the fairly new goalie, who's had a history of lukewarm interest, headed out to close out the game currently in a 4/4 tie... Damn. Nervous does not begin to describe it. :-) Anyway, the kids are playing well and they're controlling the puck pretty well. But then here comes the break away and my son the newb is the only thing between the puck and the net. He positions himself reasonably well and there's a good shot and wham! the puck goes off his mask and back behind the net. Save! I think he had another poke check save as well in there. Game ends, tied 4/4. My son had fun and is (rightfully) proud of how he did and his improvements. There's plenty for him to improve on, but this was his best performance on the ice ever. And I didn't have a heart attack. :-) Mark

Howdy, Cool. I just wasn't sure you were aware this was a NOS item that whoever the ebay seller is apparently purchased as part of a lot, vs. something they were producing now. [Edit: That's an assumption, of course... But after I won the auction for one of them (for $6) plus a few others (unrelated) I offered to pay another $6 for the other identical modsquad jersey he had listed that got no bids if he'd ship it for free in the package. Instead, he threw it in for literally nothing. It didn't seem like he was really trying to make money by producing new items, which is why I figured he got them as part of some big package deal.] PM me with whatever the profit is on these and I can paypal you some $$. [edit again: Or let me know if you'd rather do something else. I like the jerseys though. Pens/Bruins colors. :-)] Mark

Howdy, FWIW, maybe not... These apparently came from a closeout / "NOS" supply. My guess is that they were made back then and never sold? Dunno. I paid $12 shipped for both of them... http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=modsquad+hockey+jersey&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=44514&_sargn=-1%26saslc%3D1&_salic=1&_sop=12&_dmd=1&_ipg=50 Mark

Howdy, Doing my typical "cruise ebay looking for cheap interesting hockey jerseys" and came across a couple that I bet folks here know the story behind... http://www.ebay.com/itm/MEDIUM-ModSquad-Online-Report-Black-Gold-2-Throwback-Minor-League-Hockey-Jersey-/132118062236?hash=item1ec2d9a49c:g:-SoAAOSwzaJX-URq Mark @JR Boucicaut, what's the scoop on when these were made?

Howdy, Jesus. That's awful. Condolences to all involved there. Mark

Howdy, Last week I passed the "I've changed my work password 100 times" threshold. :-) Mark

Howdy, 7dm2 or the original? Either way, that should be a nice upgrade. :-) What're you you using lens-wise? I've been thinking I should dust off the photo gear and see how I could do. I expect getting exposures right is a challenge with so much white & the fast motion... Mark

Howdy, That's really no better than the other guy that can't let it go. Some people are assholes. Ignore them. Mark (and yeah, sometimes I break my own rule too. :-)

Howdy, WTF. NHL.TV isn't streaming the all star skills competition or game. At least NBC is apparently broadcasting the game, but still... WTF? Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I've done the normal reset your location stuff. Also confirmed that the NHL.tv app worked without the Yonder DNS servers in place. No dice. Only thing I haven't tried is doing it from a PC instead of my xbox one. Mark

Howdy, Grrrr. NHL.TV and Yonder appear to be annoyed with each other. I really wanted to watch some hockey tonight, not play network engineer. :-( Blackouts suck. Mark

Howdy, So, I've been searching a bit and not coming up with many (any?) NHL or other "I play hockey at a high level" people using FBV... Are there some and I'm just not seeing them? Mark

Howdy, So, tried FBV for the first time. I was kicking around between 1/2" and 3/8" ROH, settling on 7/16" for the last while. I went with the 95/75 FBV profile. Fairly impressed! Even with my relative newness to the game, I can feel the difference in glide. My skate doesn't seem as "sticky" on my non-push foot. And at the same time, I seem to have as much or perhaps even a touch more edge grip when turning. Skates don't seem to dig in quite as much when stopping, at least initially, but if I consciously bend my ankle to dig them in more, that seems to work. Been out on them for two games now and the other thing that's interesting is that the edge grip doesn't seem to have changed at all over that time. So far at least, I'm a convert. I've heard that when they get dull its a little more of a "falling off a cliff" kinda thing vs. the gradual dulling I've experienced with standard ROH sharpening. We'll see how that goes. Right now I'm planning on trying to get around 5-ish ice-hours on a set of blades before sharpening, but no real clue if that's aggressive, reasonable, or too conservative. One thing that's interesting is just how flat the blade looks. All the drawings you see online are so exaggerated that I wasn't really prepared for just how completely flat / featureless the edge is, but it makes sense when you think that the last number of 75 is a height difference of only .00075"! :-) Mark

Howdy, Yeah, yesterday when I posted they had both 7/7.5 and 8/8.5, but I see they're out now. I was pretty happy to see them, as I hadn't found normal steel anywhere in the 7/7.5 size. Mark

Howdy, I _think_ this is a pretty good deal for Mako folks? CXN holder w/runner for $30, plus 25% off at HockeyMonkey. http://www.hockeymonkey.com/catalog/product/view/id/140459 Mark

Howdy, My time at the local rink tonight would have made a great advertisement for Sparx. :-) Local rink guy I'm friendly with (and remain so) sharpened my skates but edges were _way_ off. Like, very easily visible to the eye. He didn't see it before he gave them back. Not adversarial and he was kinda embarrassed when I pointed it out. Then he tried to cut them again, without much better results. During this whole process, it was clear that he could do the job when everything worked right, but didn't have enough experience to recognize/fix other problems. He's a nice guy (I'd say "kid", but he's probably in his 30's, so that mostly shows that I'm old I think... :-) and wanted to do the right thing, but just didn't have the experience / knowledge. My guess is that something was wonky with the holder but ?? Anyway, making a long story short, my skates are still up there and the old guy that knows more will cut them tomorrow. On most levels, no harm, no foul. Sure a little steel is gonna be gone that really shouldn't be, but hey whatever. But I'm still wishing I had my own sharpener (absent that whole $900 to buy one thing :-). Mark

Howdy, Anyone used either of these? I wouldn't mind owning an edge height checker, but $100 for a BR100 seems a little silly after having used one at the local rink. Mark