BenBreeg

I do product development for a living, work with local incubators, and am president of the local product management chapter that puts on discussion forums around innovation. It is what I do as a career. One thing it always comes down to- what problem are you solving that isnt being addressed in the market already? Leading with claims about technology doesn’t do that. I can alrady buy pro stock sticks that outshoot me for less than $150 and if we’re honest with ourselves the vast majority of players would probably see no change in their game using sticks several steps down from the top price point. In the long run, you may attract initial attention with marketing talk, but to sustain business you need to deliver something thto market needs. Good marketing is necessary to support a good product, but it can’t sustainably sell something that doesn’t deliver. So what’s the value proposition over other options?

I just bought STX elbows and i love them, i had to order a couple sizes and send the ones that didn’t fit back. Things fit differently and different designs may feel different. It really helps to try them on whichever route you go. Some places online charge restocking fees so ordering a bunch of stuff with the intent of returning can cost extra (just happened to me almost).

Do any of those alternatives (Wilson, Alienpros, X speedfit) have adhesive backing or do they rely on the overlap and tape at eith end to keep them in place?

So we have been skating a bit and went to a “pre-tryout” clinic, two days of one hour practices basically at the rink close to us. The guy who runs it is so good with little kids and really focuses on skating. My son is now constantly playing in the driveway. Baseball starts thjs week so we will be transitioning to that a bit more. But the main point of this post was we ran into a kid fron his ADM team at this clinic. This kid is 6 and is very good. But whenever we go somewhere, he is there. Sticktime, he is there. Clinic, etc. He plays in two different ADM orgs, goes to these special skill sessions, works private lessons with Tyler Kennedy, and I am sure other things. At the beginning of our season he was all smiles, by the end, not so much. But what killed me was the conversation between his dad and another parent about how many things they sign their kids up for. One asked, “what do you do when “Bobby” doesn’t want to go to hockey?” “Well, the one night he was crying because he was so tired and had two practices so I told him to just go to practice and kind of take it easy...” This guy is nice but holy *$&#! He is pushing him and I have even mentioned in general a bunch of times to him about not overdoing it. I was just talking in generalities and not about his kid but he just smiles and doesnt get it. 50/50 chance the kid quits by the time he is 10? If he is allowed to quit...

I can’t imagine what it is like to go through something like this but I’m pulling for you as I’m sure everyone around here is. John

It is certainly feasible that a helmet could change the dynamics of how an external force is transferred to the head and thus how the skull interacts with the brain, it seems those differences might be more a mathematical exercise and have little overall effect. I have worked in medical device product development for almost 20 years. Even there clinical trial results can be so borderline that many intelligent people can draw different conclusions. And by intelligent people I don’t mean the media.

Doesn’t using traditional eyelets change the tendon guard as well? Not sure if pro skates are held to that but without looking I think that is the case on the order form.

Two more weeks at this point. It would probably be much better if you could do this multiple times a week but it is what it is. It generally takes about 20 minutes to get used to it each time I go out there. While the right (problem side) still kind of collapses onto the outside edge as opposed to a smooth transition I can feel on the left, there are other things you figure out as you do this. It helps you become aware of what everything but your feet/ankles are doing as you skate. Where is your head vertically relative to your feet as you put weight on each skate? For my, pretty sure I was more over my left skate than my right, just from years of favoring the left side as well as more counter clock-wise skating. I think my weight is different forward to back when turning left than right. I imagine my hips are different, etc. So one thing is you become aware of these things, but it is something I think is going to take a long time to address. It is harder to get a deep knee bend on my right foot, the weight still wants to move toward the front of my skate. Another is that while I don’t have the soreness I had the first skate, there are definitely different stresses being put on the body (lower leg/ankles of course, but also the knees and hips). So it would be something to monitor less you end up causing more problems by overdoing it (probably especially true for those of us over 40). I tempered this by doing drill-type skating interspersed with just easy laps where I tried to just spend more time with the weight on my right skate or do one-foot glides. Lastly, it still feels like there is benefit even at this early stage when you lace up regularly, so that is a good spot check.

I read through it as well, most of those guys seem to know the models so they aren’t called out explicitly. Struggling to find gloves to replace my Eagle X70s. I like the Alphas but not the retail cuff, too restrictive. The ones you custom order seem to have a different cuff so that may be an option or the CCM HG97 ssem to be a traditional glove with a flexible cuff. Or the HG96, but hard to tell if the difference between the two is justa slightly different cuff.

This is my motivation. Between getting stuck the last two weeks not being able to get to the shop to get my skates done and getting there and finding out it is closed at 6 on a Saturday, I'm sold on the convenience aspect.

It depends on the type of activity. In a lot of cases the better players are going to dominate and the "C" players really won't be participating. This can be frustrating for them and really doesn't help them develop. You want to create scenarios where kids can have success.

Saw him about 10 years ago, great show! RIP

Would team stock gloves have the same cuff as retail?

I have been set on buying Alphas since I really love how flexible they are in the hand and the roomier 4 roll fit. But I tried them on again yesterday and noticed the cuff was more restricting than I thought. My Eagle X70 gloves are open on the ulnar side and I can bend my wrist pretty much in full range of motion the Alphas as are stitched together there. Coverts solve this with the floating type cuff but not sure I want the tight fit plus I don't love non-4 roll look that much. Can I snip some of the stitching to open this up without it starting to fray?

Never! No Ernest Borgnine, no Airwolf!

I was actually wondering about JMV the other day. I thought he had passed already. Pretty tragic life. I was a child of the 80s and Airwolf was one of my favorite shows. It, along with others from that era, had the best theme songs.

Others may chime in about specifics but higher end gloves definitely will have better protection. Once you get into the middle tier gloves seems like there are more color combos to choose from (those Warrior Alpha Pros at Pure have like 15 cool colors). Lots of pro stocks available in the $110 range so you have even more color combos if that matters to you.

The EZ Goal looks like good bang for the buck. I have seen some more expensive ones with 18 ga steel vs the EZ Goal’s 12 ga so seems like a good deal.

The thought is that 1) today's skates aren't as easy to modify like old leather ones were (and the shoemaker has since passed away) 2) with a better fit the padding wouldn't be necessary 3) I think the CCM customs have options for additional padding I would also love to have a bigger toe cap, my pinkie toe is always numb even after just an hour on the ice

Can you get Ribcore customs too? He only mentions Tacks and Jetspeeds. I am considering customs for too reasons. One, I am old and haven’t had new skates in like 20 years, so it is splurge buy. Two, i have boney feet and my pair now has all kind of extra padding inserted by a shoemaker who used to work on skates because skates always had hot spots poked me and killed my feet. Thinking customs would allow for batter molding and also adding extra padding.

Will keep working on it. Tried some one-foot slaloms, but it was more of a wiggle 🙂 did you do anything with insoles or anything else to the skate or just solve it via practice?

By player vs. player I mean any drill that would have them competing, such as small area type games, 2-2, Ringette, etc.

The Luke Perry one gets me. I hated 90210 but he was only 52. That kind of thing always reminds me not to take things for granted.

So week 2 of untied skating. It was definitely easier just to skate, my left side was basically right on. If I didn’t have the pronation issue on the right I would probably be able to do a lot more pretty quickly. Getting on the right outside edge is still a challenge. It kind of goes from on the flat and suddenly flops to the edge all of a sudden. But one thing I noticed is that since I favor my left side, my head and upper body lead early when turning left, while when turning right I don’t think that naturally happens. Doing Gretzky turns is actually pretty good on both sides for some reason. One thing that helped my clockwise crossovers was actually focusing on keeping my shoulders parallel and not dipping my inside one, which I must be doing. Didn’t get the soreness during skating either. Backwards was ok but getting on that right outside edge was even tougher. Couldn’t push it much because this afternoon session was filled almost entirely with really little kids. My son on the other hand if flying. Crossovers both was yesterday with laces two down. Trying to get that inside foot/outside edge engaged for turns but that is a process. Toward the end we were ready to go soon and he wanted to try 3 eyelets down. So we did. I told him to just take it easy and focus on staying over top of his….and he was gone before I finished my sentence! 😊 He did ok actually. A couple wipe outs because he instantly tried to do everything he had been practicing but not bad. I don’t know whether to keep them down as he learns new skills or to learn the skills with 1 or 2 down then reinforce them by progressively unlacing. Thoughts?

I am about to get some shooting tiles for the driveway soon but can’t imagine our street hockey net would last more than a few minutes with pucks being shot. What goal do you guys have for this setup?