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You're a Boomer, aren't you? That's some A+ thick-skulled Boomer unwarranted condescension right there. Hats off to that level of just "not getting it" my man.

I can't stress enough how completely you missed the point of my post.

Thanks for the tips guys. I got them fresh looking and wore them in a game today. They feel really good actually, I like the less bulkier design they have.

I just got a pair of vintage Cooper SG 600s and while they don't stink, they are pretty dirty. I'd rather not run the risk of damaging these at all with improperly washing them, and in all my years of playing, have never actually put equipment in the washing machine. I'd appreciate any and all feedback on getting these babies back in beautiful condition.

The real irony is a lot of these types of people don't even have a monitor that can display framerates that high, so their money is totally wasted. In any case, these people are acting like teenagers, or are in fact that young, and in some sense I can understand that. When you're young you want the latest and greatest and you have no real filter for bullshit marketing quite yet. Grown men, often 30+ years old, acting like overpriced, bad quality gear will get them noticed by the non-existent scouts in the stands at their rec league games so they can be the fourth liner/"enforcer" of their dreams though? That a different level of sad. I see your point, and I agree, it isn't unique to hockey players, it just seems worse to me somehow.

True to an extent. While what you said is common, the reaction to it seems to be almost unique to hockey players. Let me use an example from another hobby of mine. I build computers. Custom high end gaming stuff. That's an industry where marketing is equally ridiculous as it is in hockey, but the difference is the reaction of the intended base. Most guys who build computers don't buy any of the hype. It's a CPU. It's a power supply. It's whatever, it has objective qualities to it. Plus, it's not like these companies slap a different colored heat sink on the same stick of RAM every year and say "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THE ReVoLuTiOnArY PERFORMANCE YOU WILL GET OUT OF OUR EXTREME PRO 2 FOR PRO RAM!" Not with hockey gear. CCM tells you their new stick is .0003 grams lighter and calls it "EXTREME PRO 2 FOR PRO" and people line up to drop $300+ on it "because."

I've basically come to the conclusion that hockey equipment is among the most predatory marketing schemes in sports equipment. Maybe because there is so much of it, but nothing else comes close unless we're talking about really expensive sports like golf. Most gear is just cosmetically different stuff that has gone fundamentally unchanged for 15-20 years, but is always marketed as "revolutionary." The problem I see is that most guys just eat this up. Adult rec league players legitimately believe that $200 shin pads or $160 elbow pads actually make them a better player. Because CCM and Bauer told them so. Which, to clarify, if you do in fact believe that, you have brain problems. Not to mention the quality of the gear has gone down if anything. Fancy foams with trademarked names doesn't really mean much when your expensive gear starts falling apart in a few years. Sorry if this feels like an unfocused post, but this just really bothers me. I wouldn't be on this site if I also wasn't particular about my gear, but there generally does seem like there is something uniquely wrong with hockey players in this regard. Anyone have any thoughts?

Helmet: Bauer 4500 - black (looking to change this though) Cage: Hockey Ninja Ronin Mk5 Shoulder Pads: inline player, none Elbow pads: Sher-wood Shertek 906 Gloves: Labeda Pama 7.1 Pro - Edmonton / Eagle Aero Custom Pro in mostly white with black and pink Pants: Tour Code 3.One Shin pads: Cooper SG 600 Skates: Bauer Vapor 3X boot with a Tuuk 7000 series aluminum chassis off a Bauer H-9 from the mid/late 90s, Labeda Millennium wheels in purple Stick: Sherwood Momentum 77 2-piece 85 flex with Bouchard pattern blade / one of if not the first Eastern Synergy sticks, Modano pattern, 75 flex / two Easton Silver Tip two piece aluminum sticks, one Gretzky and the other the red one, forgot the name, which I no longer use as they are too sentimentally valuable to me to risk after I dug them out of storage from like 15+ years ago along with my other sticks if you couldn't tell.

So glad I'm not the only person doing this. I got a new pair of Bauer Vapor 3X ice hockey boots and put a chassis off a mid/late 90s Bauer H-9 on them.