caveman27

I'm used to the helmet stickers now. Not sure how a regular person can get them. Bribe a team's equipment manager.

Vegas in the playoffs probably helps with future sales.

Do you have pictures? Not sure if the elbow pad is too small or too short. If you have long arms and want coverage from slashes between the glove cuff and the elbow pad forearm padding, look for pro stock elbow pads with extended coverage. They aren't easy to find though.

Regular dress socks.

I got sick and tired of the sub-par sharpening at the local rink. There's multiple guys: one guy does a great job, the rest are bozos, to put it lightly. There's no guarantee the good sharpener works on my skates. My solution: buy an extra set of blades. I got both sharpened at noicingsports.com and installed one set at the beginning of the season. When one set needs to get sharpened, I get it sharpened at a shop that has a Sparx sharpener. After two visits to them, they kind of need a good sharpening. I mail the worn set of blades to www.noicingsports.com and replace with my back-up blades. I just keep this cycle going. In your case, you would go to that shop 40 mins away and get two sets of blades sharpened. That way, you don't have to take as many trips and you have a backup set to replace with instead of going to Pure Hockey.

One way to reprofile the blade to get negative pitch. I had a set of blades that were the opposite of what you are feeling, I felt like I was getting pushed back onto my heels instead of feeling centered on the skate, so I needed positive/aggressive pitch. It requires the sharpener to grind metal off the whole length of the blade so you might want to try vet88's suggestion first.

You already have a second pair of the same model? Is he complaining of any issues with his current skates? If not, there's no reason to switch even if you manually have squeezed the skates and noticed a softer top. He may have gone through a rough break-in period (took longer than usual) with the first set of skates and doesn't want to go through that again.

A goalie on a team I was on had the Grit tower for goalie gear. It seemed to be built well, like zipper, compartments, handle and wheels holding up to the usual packing and unpacking for weekly games.

This a picture of the inside of a leg of Bauer goalie pants with the knee guard velcro attachment strip. That or you can attach it to the garter belt strap like this.

I always that the Top Clip was a gimmick. Micron Air 90 fit like a glove though.

I had bought these CCM Rbk skates that had this metal loop that allowed you to tighten the laces below the ankles at a certain tightness, and then pressing the metal loop over this plastic round thing locked the laces in at that tightness so you could tighten the top 3 eyelets at a different tightness. Those didn't fit right and I ended up getting CCM Jetspeeds. They stopped making the Ribcor model like that. I guess that idea didn't work out.

Ok. You could use either kickpoint knowing that a lower kickpoint is going to get your shot off a little bit faster than a mid kickpoint, which probably will work for you if you are mostly taking wrist and snapshots.

kickpoint: if you are taking most of your shots at the blue line, then mid or hybrid kickpoint is preferable. If you are taking most of your shots within 10 to 25 feet of the net, a lower kickpoint is better. But, either could do and you might be more interested in the flex and blade shape that works for you than kickpoint.

The goalie customizing tool is a hoot if you are into that kind of thing. https://customizer.truetempergoalie.com/ The one on the goaliemonkey site is nice too. https://www.goaliemonkey.com/true-goalie-leg-pads-l20-1-pro-sr-custom.html

Lange was ahead of its time. Using ski boot technology for stiffness, but incorporating a hinge to allow for some forward flex.

Having no actual coaching except books, I started out prioritizing depth, angle, squareness and playing a reactive, stand-up style. Decades later, I got back into it and with youtube videos to learn from, I prioritized squareness, angle, depth and playing a hybrid reactive/blocking butterfly style. Not playing anymore though. I think my preference before I hung up the pads was just looking good on the ice by wearing Vaughn and Koho gear.... forget about angle, squareness or depth. Just kidding. I had to juggle when to prioritize depth, squareness or angle depending on the situation. If the puck carrier was at the blue line, depth was priority. If the puck carrier was behind the goal line, then angle was prioritized so I could handle passes coming out front and to avoid someone trying to bank the puck off my pads and into the net (which had happened). If the puck was somewhere in between, then squareness was prioritized.

Yeah. I kind of thought the ear protectors, which I do keep on, were meant to protect the ear from errant high sticks, not slap shots.

I meant frontal hit without a helmet.

Getting hit on the ear is a fluke, but seeing that a puck makes direct contact with the skull if it hits the upper part of the ear kind of tells you its going to shake the skull as much as a frontal hit..

As for pants, try out CCM pro stock pants that are HPUCLP or HPUCLX. They are lightweight and protective. www.prostockhockey.com

For his height, weight, skate size and style of skating, the profile that works for him might not necessarily work for everyone else. I'd be interested in knowing what he uses, along with other fast skaters in the league.

I'm going to say things have changed a bit since 1975 as it pertains to skate blade profiles. There's still all-out maximum speed going north-south where your hips and knees are deeply bent, you engage your arms to swing, and your stride starts slowing down as you glide more. Guys who do more north-south skating are happier with a larger radius. Fast north-south skaters aren't always fast east-west skaters, where a player's style is to get around in a zone as fast as possible in short distances. Here, these skaters want a short radius, or at least shorter than average. They make deep c-cuts to get their acceleration whether going backwards or forwards, and they want to be able to turn hard and deep. You can't do things with a 15' radius that you can with a 9' radius and vice versa. With that said, I think Connor McDavid's special sauce is his skate blade profile.

Crossovers are a way to build speed. Not necessarily to max speed, but to get acceleration in a short amount of distance. There's a video of his end-to-end goal against Toronto. If you haven't seen it, here it is. He's getting a lot of acceleration doing crossovers between the right end of the center circle to the offensive blue line, once he crosses the blue line, he's not taking anymore strides. Of course, if he can do regular strides to get to max speed, then that's what he'll do. In this end-to-end goal, he's not doing any crossovers in his breakout, but getting all his acceleration from forward strides. He's going even faster in this breakaway.

Ankle strength?

Aside from the possible penalty, it's interesting that no one on the white team is hustling to be a part of the breakaway. There's always an opportunity to get open for a pass, put more pressure on the goalie/defense, pick up a rebound, pick up the puck if the puck carrier loses control, etc.