psulion22

Part of the reason I’m interested is because of the reduced level of drag and also force/resistance needed to generate the same level of bite. That definitely will be easier on knees. I’m concerned about situations where a skate blade is at an extreme angle to the ice where a normal blade would slip out but this blade will grab. Picture a goalie doing a butterfly slide but then accidentally having an edge engage in the middle. He’s going to stop, and all his weight and momentum is going to go over that foot, likely causing a knee or ankle injury. This is how I hurt my first knee. I got hit from behind while engaged along the boards. My foot was against the other guy’s skate so it couldn’t slide out. I ended up going over that foot and tore the MCL (and only MCL unlike an injury where the player goes back as well as over the foot, typically causing much more damage). In fact, have you tried any goalie testing with this? It seems like increasing bite at that angle could lead to these kinds of injuries plus difficulty shuffling.

Bringing this one back from the dead since I noticed mention of Flare in the Sparx thread. Are there any more reviews or input on these? I'm going to need a new ring for my Sparx in the next month or two and this concept seems interesting. SO if it really is something worth trying, I'd like to do so to get the appropriate ring when needed. Also, I see that pros are liking them and not having "blow outs". Here's the thing. I have compromised MCLs in both knees from injuries. I've blown the right once and left twice. I am at risk of continuing to injure them. The biggest issue would be if I got hit at an awkward angle and go down with my knee under me and blade engaged in the ice. Having the edge slip somewhat easily likely would reduce the injury risk and could possibly save my knee. How much increased "lateral" grip are we talking here for someone that doesn't have the balance and edge strength of a NHL'er? Is every play going to anchor my blade to the ice and not allow it to slip out for safety, even if I wanted it to? Or are we really talking more about increased grip when skating because of centrifugal force?

That may make a lot of sense. It was early October 2016. The inventory of player gear was also pathetic. All they seemed to have was mid/low level gear and leftover models. They were even low on things like tape and laces. I was there visiting friends who live in Cranberry, as a surprise for their daughter’s birthday. So I couldn’t be driving around looking for stuff. We needed to go to Walmart to pick something up for school the next day. The TH is in the same parking lot as the Walmart, so we decided to stop in to drop the skates off, run over to Walmart, and then I’d just look at what I needed real quick before we left. So that extra time meant we were gone for well over an hour for something that should have been 30 minutes. Bad employees are definitely everywhere. That’s why I had to buy a Sparx machine. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than what I have available to me down here.

The Monkey Sports store in NJ has a ton of inventory. The Total Hockey in Sterling, VA had a pretty good selection. Great Skate in Buffalo had a decent amount. Even the Peranis in Pittsburgh had some. I get that most of the small shops, like the ones near me, have little goalie stuff because of the cost and space limitations and the specificity of goalie gear. A big store like a Total Hockey should have more than they did. There are wayyyyyyy more goalies who buy off the shelf than buy custom. I don’t think expecting a major large retailer to have at least one set of the most current and popular gear from a major manufacturer like Bauer or Warrior, so I can at least get my hands on it, is anywhere near unreasonable.

That store is a pile of garbage. They had next to no inventory when I was there, particularly on the goalie side. I went in hoping to get my hands on some gear because my LHS in Florida is, well, in Florida so that's all you need to know. Pure (Total at the time) barely had much more. I dropped off my skates to be sharpened, and my friend who I was visiting had the sharpening plan so it should have been free. We went to pick up the skates and they told me one skate was done, but the steel on other was cracked. I am 90% sure it wasn't broken when I brought it in. I had no issues in the game I played the night before that would have indicated a broken runner. I didn't notice anything after the game when I cleaned the runners and put on the skate guards. The bag went from the locker room to the car and stayed there until I brought them into the store. But since I didn't know for absolutely sure they broke the runner while sharpening the skates, I couldn't do much about it. So my "free" sharpening cost me $100 in new steel. Then it took them nearly 30 minutes to sharpen the steel after I approved the replacement despite there being no one else in the store (and they didn't call to let me know it was broken, they waited until I came back, which is also ridiculous)

Bigger thigh rises? Lundy strapping? They're freaks? I'll take the last line next. When I say "frozen in place" I mean that your weight is aligned and distributed in a way that it creates too much friction between the pad and ice and makes it impossible to recover or change direction without first adjusting your body to alleviate that friction and get your skate into a position to engage an edge. The result is a situation where your pad won't slide because of that friction and you can't move because your body isn't aligned/controlled correctly. The only option at that point is to lunge or dive with your stick and body to try and make a save because you don't have the time or ability to use your lower body. This is a terrible situation to be in for a goalie. If you are going to go to the ice, you must do so in a position where you can recover from the ice, even if that means back to standing to move laterally, and that means being able to lift a leg/knee off the ground in the direction you need to go.. You are dropping into positions where you can't lift your leg in order to engage an edge to move - feet behind you, butt down or all your weight on the leading pad, usually the right. I didn't say one before the other. I said you're only dropping to one, typically your right. Often you do this half butterfly type thing with the trailing leg off the ice. Your weight should be centered towards the push leg, not over the lead leg so you can lift your push one. It's more apparent when you have to move to your right at the same time. Let's look at the very first play of AA vs Black Knights, interestingly a game where you got beat and were disappointed in your (and your team's) performance. You're square to the first guy on a 3-1 with depth where you should be. Your D makes a bad read and essentially turns himself into a cone screening you. The puck goes to your right. And since you have to move that way, you drop all of your weight onto your right knee, with your body way over that leg. You're leading with your head and shoulders into the play rather than the pad. And your left pad trails behind you, off the ice. The result is that the pad sticks to the ice, you lever over the top of it, and you can't even attempt to do anything when the puck goes the other way. Not completely your fault by any means, and you probably couldn't have stopped it anyway. But all you could do was watch. If you would have dropped to both knees when you slid to your right, your weight would have been centered, and you may have been able to engage your right skate or even just throw out your left pad. But it was a flukey play, so let's look at the next one in that video. You are on your angle with your shoulders square. A shot comes high glove side, with very little angle to the short side. Instead of dropping to both knees in the center of your stance, which would probably have just put the puck into your glove naturally, you drop to your right pad, moving your entire body AWAY from the shot and have to reach all the way out with your glove to make the save. If anything, you should have dropped to your left to bring your body and head behind the puck. But I know dropping left knee only is an issue, so it definitely should have been two knees. If you didn't catch that puck clean because you had to reach out for it, you'd be stuck on your right knee, all the way to the right post with no way to move to your left to stop the rebound from going in. Two plays later, an attacker comes in wide from your left and tries to cut back from behind the net. You think he's going to cut across, so go to slide to your right and lean over that pad, leaving the entire short side exposed. He doesn't score, but it should have been an easy goal. If you drop to both pads, you still would have been square to him and moving across. At 1:35 (pause it right there for a visual representation of what I mean) same thing. You slide, weight on right leg, left leg and arm trailing behind you. Eventually you slide into the play and get your left leg down, but your weight is still over the right. When the play cuts back, you have to lunge to your left to try and cover it, which puts you off balance and teeters you forward. You can't control the rebound, miss the cover, and have to lunge to try to stop the empty net goal. If you would have been centered, you're covering that puck in front of you rather than reaching for it. Do you see what I'm talking about now? So that's all frustrating and disheartening, I know. But the thing is that you CAN do it right. That's how I know it's a technique thing. What I find most interesting is that you have mentioned playing better in games when you tend to fix the issues more often. Pretty much every save you show in the next video vs Ironside is good. You drop to both knees, square to the puck. And as a result, you can see how much more "quiet" you are. Not moving too much. Pucks are in the chest and gloves easily. Rebounds drop directly in front of you. At the 1:00 mark, you drop evenly and perform a great pivot to the new angle by turning your head->hands->hips and engaging the back edge to push (but get up instead). On the last scramble, you drop evenly so when you dive to cover the puck, everything is in front of you instead of off to the side like in the last game. Your lateral slides are all both knees down, body weight centered. I think you're sliding further and easier as a result. At 1:30 you make a great save moving from your right to left with good technique. At 1:43 you make a good save and are able to regain your edges because you're balanced. You end up diving for the puck but I think that was more because you lost sight of it and were on the wrong foot when you realized where it was. You probably would have been able to push with your right foot if you had seen it the whole way. 2:41 is another good lateral push to the new angle. Even the last goal was good technique. You were on both knees and were able to adjust to try and make the save. Just a bad bounce to an uncovered guy. But the attempt wasn't a desperation one where you just threw something out there with no chance. Hopefully that all helps.

You keep saying this, but there are plenty of times that your feet are flared more in your videos. You're using the lack of flexibility as an excuse. Your issue is in technique. When you drop down, your natural instinct is to pull your feet completely behind you, to the point where your heels are almost touching, in order to get your knees closer together. That freezes you in place. Often, you make it even worse by dropping all your weight onto one leg, typically your right. Then because you're used to being frozen in place, your instinct on a change of direction is to lunge with your head and hands. There are certainly times where that's necessary as a desperation option. But you're doing it more often than that, where better technique would get you in position faster to be making saves by planting a foot and pushing or even using your momentum to load a push leg to recover to standing. I know you'll say you just can't do that. But watch your videos, there are times when you have good flare and lateral movement, so you can do it (ie, AA vs DD at 1:35-45). No one needs you have a Niemi level flare. You have enough to be more stable than you are, and have lateral mobility. Your knees don't have to touch, that's what thigh rises and sticks are for. Mine don't. I'm not trying to be mean or abusive, honestly. I just know that if you fix some things in your technique, you can solve a lot of your issues. And you can fix those things to work within your level of ability and range of motion. I'm telling you, your issue is in technique and body/weight control (it's typically over one and/or the wrong leg) and not flexibility.

Ask the vet for Entyce. It will up his appetite and keep him eating as he starts to feel sick. We also used Cerenia, though that's expensive. CBD oil probably can't hurt at this point either. Marinol (synthetic THC given to human cancer patients) is an option if your vet/oncologist is progressive. None of this is going to cure the cancer, but it will keep him more comfortable for the time he has, and eating will keep him alive longer. We went through this last year. Literally tried everything, as you can see from the Marinol, surgery, radiation, 4 different chemo protocols. We kept him alive for 18 months by keeping him eating while we tried to fight it (to no avail). That's the key. Entyce is supposed to work miracles. Unfortunately it wasn't available yet for us. We had resorted to giving him Taco Bell by the end. Sorry to hear this. Spend time with him, but don't give up. You can still give him a great quality of life for as long as he's able. You'll know when it's time.

Nope, Supremes definitely have a more neutral pitch. Many posters here have complained about the feeling of being back on their heels when they switched to new Supremes. I can't say for sure if it's the boot or the holder, because I had that feeling when I went from NXGs to MX3s, both Supremes, with the only change being the holder. I'd imagine that going from a non-Edge Vapor to an Edge Supreme would be an even more dramatic change. I have no idea. DO a quick search on here for "shim" and I'm sure the answer is out there. Maybe someone more experienced with this than me can help you out. I can't imagine that it would be more than a few bucks. Rivets are $1-2 each, and the shims can't be that much. I'd expect something in the $20 range maybe? It doesn't affect the profile, it will tilt you forward to get you off your heels and more of the feeling that you had in the Vapors. So if your Supremes are a 0 in terms of pitch, your Vapors may have been a +2 forward. The Quad 0 is giving you back close to a +1, but you're still behind what you had before. You can have the profile put on at an angle to alter the pitch, without altering the profile or adding shims. But I feel Shims are the better method. EDIT: Or you can just wait for JR to reply and answer everything more accurately than I can. lol

I suspected this was the case. Supreme skates (or possibly even the edge holder) have a neutral pitch to them. Your Vapors had a more forward pitch. So the backwards lean you're feeling is because of the pitch of the skate, not the profile. The best way of fixing that is to have shims placed in the heel of your skate to give you a more forward lean.

What is your new skate? That could be causing the problem instead of the profile.

I can pretty much agree with the sentiments on here - Fire is like ROH with a little more glide. I don't find it has less bite than the same ROH, I have 1/2" in both and don't really notice anything. But it's not like FBV that sits on top of the ice and really digs in on the edges. For me it's FBV > Fire > ROH.

Thanks, I'm on Quad 1. The agility and stability on the ice is outstanding, and far superior to the 9' with a Cag I had before. But I feel like I'm missing speed and acceleration. I'm still only 3-4 weeks into my return from a major knee injury that sidelined me for 6 months, so I'm still attributing it to that rather than the profile. We'll see if it's still an issue in a few more weeks, and possibly move up to Q2.

Ah yes, I see what you are saying now.

20% off accessories, and $100 off the sharpener

The depth would only alter the radius if you didn't apply enough pressure. If you were to push too hard, you'd take off more steel, but still have a 1/2" radius. The wheel is 3mm thick and contoured to a specific radius. As long as you push hard enough to make the whole wheel contact the 3mm blade, the radius won't change. Depth of hollow (or edge height) would be measured in thousandths of an inch, and be relevant in edge squareness, not radius.

There's a tool, I forget what it's called, that checks the depth of the hollow on the steel. Not Sparx specific, it can be used on all skates. What you're talking about is different. 1/2" is the radius of the hollow (or more accurately, the wheel), not the depth. If you didn't apply enough pressure to the wheel when sharpening a skate, you wouldn't remove the steel across the entire radius and the hollow wouldn't be deep enough.

I agree here. That's what was the giveaway to me. The pitch was changing in different parts of the blade, and I felt that was being caused by too much tension. It's almost a slipping sound which you'd think was caused by not enough pressure on the blade, but it's the opposite. I've thought about using the riser for my Tydan steel to give the carriage a little more freedom of adjustment. I may do that now. I don't have the tool to check hollow depth. But I can tell you anecdotally that reducing the pressure actually created a sharper, stronger edge. I'm sure there's a tradeoff point to where it's not getting enough force, but going down one click wasn't a problem.

I also found that lowering the wheel one click on the starting point is giving a smaller burr. I haven't noticed any difference while skating from the wheel starting a fractional amount lower on the toe, but the burr has been much easier to remove.

I agree about Crawford. They won that Cup in spite of him. And the reality is for all of Murray's heroics, the team in front of him is way more responsible for his success. I don't want to say they win in spite of him too, because he does steal them some games. He is much like Crawford in that he has a bad glove and average puck control, and causes a lot of problems that he then bails himself out of, making him look spectacular. But he allows too many soft goals. If you look at their shot totals and charts, you'll see how little work he actually has to do. In 2016, the Pens held their opponents to 25 shots or under in 11 of the 22 games Murray played. The Sharks didn't record 30 in any game, with their high being 26. The Bolts recorded 30 or more twice (30,37), but were also held to 20 or under twice, including 17 in Game 7. And all of that was despite two games in each series going to OT, which increased the shot totals. In fact, in the two final elimination games, the Bolts and Sharks were held under 20 shots (17 and 19 respectively). Both were shut outs. The crux of the argument here is in the bullet points. I believe the first should read "Top tier defensive systems and defensemen are generally a must to win", with the rest holding true. You could make the third "Average defenses can potentially get it done if their goaltending is out of this world". But the problem is that we haven't seen that second one since Thomas in 2011 or maybe Quick in 2012 (his defense was better than average imo). We've seen a lot of teams riding the hot or elite goalie only to lose to the better defensive team though. It's just a difference of opinion.

Good? Yes. Less than fantastic? Absolutely not. Crawford was good, if that, but not fantastic in '15. Murray was good, but not fantastic in the half of the games he played last year. Fleury was good but not fantastic to start last year, and got his team to the conference finals. Even the first year, Murray was pretty good but not fantastic,

The regular season and playoff success of guys like Price, Bobrovsky, Holtby, Rask, Rinne, and even Lundqvist would seem to contradict that. Those guys are the ones that are about as elite as it gets over recent time. They've all had inconsistent results, both in the regular season and playoffs. Lundqvist, Holtby, and Rask have been outplayed by backups for a time. A guy like Mike Smith, or Luongo, are guys on bad teams that don't get the recognition they should. Antii Raanta was unbelievable this year for a terrible team that got nowhere. Devan Dubnyk was close to an elite level in Minnesota for a few years with little success. The team that plays the best defensive system - first the passive Torts system, and now the active transition game - is the one that got higher in the standings and deeper into the playoffs over the past 5-7 years. It's not basketball. The team with the best player doesn't always win. That's why team play and system is significantly more important than a single player, even a goalie.

I don't know how I forgot Quick in '12. He was ridiculous. The rest of the guys aren't finalists. Many of them got only one vote. In fact, you have to go back to 13/14 to find one of them that got more than one vote. That year Quick got 3, for a total of 9 points. The winner, Rask, had 103 points. So again, what you continue to ignore is that the team with the best defensive structure beats the team with the hot goalie over the long run. That was what I said. 5 years in a row the better team beat the goalie that carried their team there, mostly in dominating fashion. In those wins, the teams had multiple goalies playing with similar results. Statistically, the goalies are interchangeable when the team does its job. But you're handpicking the games the guy played fantastic, and ignoring the games he blew the game as your argument. I believe any goalie in the league is capable of stealing some games and shitting the bed in others. Most of the guys that played truly fantastic recently - Rinne, Jones, Bishop - all lost to a dominant team with an inconsistent goalie, allowing bad goals that had been atypical up to that point. Both Murray and Crawford were replaced because of their poor play and won, and Murray only played half the games last year. My point isn't that goaltending isn't a factor. It certainly is, especially to the bad side. My point is that the goalie doing the goaltending isn't important as long as he stops what he should and doesn't allow bad goals. Statistically, there just isn't a large enough separation between these guys to make a big difference over the long term. We'll just to have to agree to disagree on this.

And who was the last Vezina finalist to win a Cup? Thomas in 10/11? He truly carried that team to a win. But that Bruins team was the last of the really heavy, passive teams to win. After them, the Kings and Hawks moved to a more active, speed game that was metric based. The game is different now.

Corey Crawford. Twice. Over a team with the hot goalie. Matt Murray. Twice. Over a team with the hot goalie. That's 4 of the last 5 Cups. Both guys were replaced by someone else for sucking so badly at some point during at least one of those Cup runs. Murray played less than half the games last year. Yes, both of those guys made some key saves when needed. They also allowed some terrible goals that cost their team. And all 4 of those Cups relied more on their team's ability to defend and transition (and the Kings' inbetween as well) than their goalie carrying them. Interesting that both guys are known to be able to be picked high glove. And they frequently are when the other team has time to shoot. As a Flyer's fan you definitely know how a goaltender can lose you a series. But you also should understand how poor defensive structure can't win either. A goalie definitely impacts a team on the negative side more than the positive. With the way teams are playing over the past 5-6 years, a goalie needs to stop what he should and make a key save sometimes. But I feel that's something that every goalie in the league should be able to do, not just the elite or fantastic ones. That's why I say they're interchangeable. You should be able to put almost any goalie in and get those things. There are many, many examples of backups and unknowns coming in and outplaying the elites over the past 5 years. Things are different now than they were 5 years ago when teams all played that "Torts" passive style of defense and tried to clog up the middle of the ice and just block everything. Now they're very active and want to play defense by limiting the other team's possession, therefore limiting shots. Yes, if that doesn't work they try and block things, but that's not their first choice. The teams that are left in the playoffs are the teams that are the best at that. Goalies are still important, in that you need them to not suck and allow goals they shouldn't. But they aren't the most important to winning a Cup anymore. Let's look at this series. Game 1 the Pens play like crap, don't do their job, and win because the other team's goalie failed and their goalie bailed them out. Game 2 they play the same way, the other goalie doesn't choke and they lose. In both games, the Caps had time to exploit Murray's weakness. I said it at the beginning, if the Pens keep asking Murray to make the ridiculous saves to win games they will lose. That was the entire point of my post. They've won 2 consecutive Cups by strangling out the other team and not allowing possession rather than who was in net. If they win this series and another Cup, you'll say it was because Murray was fantastic. I'll say it was because he didn't have to be. I don't know that either of us will be right or wrong, nor that we'll agree with the other.