psulion22

Yes, very true. Fit is important. I don't like the fit and shape of Bauer masks. So I stay away from them. But just in terms of shell layup and rigidity, I believe the NME8 is inferior to all that I mentioned, so for that price I'd go with something else. I do know that the NME8 is very popular though. The new XRD foam does look comfy. I'm actually wearing a Sportmask T3 with Maltese kit, and the thing is bulletproof. For the money, the TGC spec Sportmask Pro-Fs are the best masks on the market, IMO. Roughly $400 for a full pro- glass and fiber layup with size and spec options can't be beat.

I thought the shell layup in the 9000 was still the same as the fiberglass PTS? They aren't made by PTS anymore, but they are still using the shell makeup that Michel designed. Now they are adding carbon fiber and removing some of the Kevlar to the Pro model to reduce weight.

I don't know that the NME8 is as rigid as other masks. I wouldn't go below a NME10. For that same ~$399, I'd definitely go with the CCM 9000 instead. And really, I'd go with a Protechsport fiberglass or Sportmask X8 for less than $400 US.

If you don't feel well after taking a shot to the mask, it's time for a new mask. End of story. If you're buying a new retail mask, it has to cost more than $500. Your absolute best bet would be a CCM 9000 if you can find one. They are very good masks for the money, and should be on clearance now for under $400. At the absolute least, go buy a Maltese mask kit for your existing mask. Edit: If you can swing it, this is a fantastic deal. CCM masks were designed by Protechsport. Even the 9000 is a very good mask. This Pro will be a little lighter. But both shells are very rigid and protective. http://goalie.totalhockey.com/product/CCM_Pro_Goalie_Mask_-_2014_Model_SENIOR/itm/12758-41/?dvdit=1

We did an Advocare 24-day Challenge. The program is good because it gives you structure to kick start your weight loss. It's not cheap, but I think it's worth it for the month or so it lasts. We have pretty much stopped with the products from them, but maintain the eating habits that we adopted. They make shakes that we keep on hand just in case we need a quick meal. And unlike many other companies, their shakes are damn delicious. I'm not a crazy Atkins or no-carb freak. But we have attained a lot of success but cutting out most white carbs. No regular flour, no sugar, no white rice, limited white potatoes. Instead we eat whole wheat bread, use honey or agave for sweetener, eat brown rice, and eat sweet potatoes more. It's a pretty easy change to make that doesn't require a tremendous amount of planning. Saturday is cheat day where we eat whatever we want. The problem with natural fruit or veggie smoothies is that they are loaded with sugar and calories from the fruit/veg, even without adding any sweetener. You'll be better off going with a product like Advocare or another premium nutritional shake (maybe Herbalife?) that uses protein and fiber to make you full, but doesn't have much sugar or carbs. Plus they are easier to make and clean up after, and can be made away from home in a shaker bottle.

I was going to give the same advice as ted above. You need to stay the course and push through. Identify weaknesses and work to improve them. Now's the time for that. When you're playing bad, things can't really get worse. So if you start to adjust things now, you won't really suck any more than you already do (not insulting you). When you're playing well, you (not you specifically) want to stay in the groove and are hesitant to change. But now you have the opportunity to work on something without worrying about degrading your play. Go back and watch video of your games when you were playing well, and now that you're not. Identify things you may be doing differently between then and now. From my limited viewing of your videos, your angles seem to be off. You're getting beat on clean shots you weren't before. Go back to basics - focus on proper angles, proper depth, proper stance (I find when I play poorly it's because I get lazy and bend at the waist instead of the legs and don't gett deep enough.) And then work on things like movements and recoveries. When I feel like I'm not tracking the puck well, I bring out the white pucks for warmups. A black puck looks like an airplane beacon after tracking a white one. And one other thing, you talk about how you don't go down or do much during warmups. That has to change. If you're not playing well, you need to take every opportunity to refocus and build confidence. Warmups are a great time do do what you need to do, particularly getting square and tracking. You've made tremendous improvements. Don't get down on yourself. You've hit a plateau, that's all. It happens to everyone.

Well, the streak had to come to an end I guess. Last night was the first game in 6 that I allowed more than 2 goals. I was 4-1 in the previous 5, with a 1.39 gaa. The only loss was a 2-1 final score. One of the wins was a 3-2 final that went to a 5 round shootout that I didn't allow any goals. I think I'm playing the best i ever have right now, and still feel like I'm getting better as I play more. I used to have to struggle to keep my gaa under 4. So this has been a pretty impressive stretch by my standards. I got a very good compliment from the team that I was moved to playing D instead of goal. When I said that it was good that we got him because he's better than me, two guys said "no way. You have improved every game, and have been phenominal lately." That felt good. Even last night, which ended 5-3, I played very well. I was scored on by a turnover in the faceoff dot when my defenseman hit the ref in the skates. And their guy put it top corner short side. It was a pretty sweet shot. Second was a deflection off my defenseman's leg because there was too much gap. Ended up going from probably wide to my right, to inside the left post. Third was a giveaway by that same defenseman to a player in the slot at the hash marks. I actually made a spectacular save when he faked a shot and then deked, but the puck ended up rolling out from under me and they put in an open rebound, a la JT's goal against Luongo. Apparently the ref even had his whistle about to blow when the puck came into sight. 4th was a screen by guess who that left too much gap and backed in. I never saw the shot that went bar down and in. 5th goal was another when wonder boy left too much gap and backed in, then moved slightly out of the way at the very last second because he tried to "get out of the way". That shot also went bar down and in. The same player scored goals 2, 4, & 5 on unpressured wrist shots against the same defender. The good thing is that this was for the team that wanted me to try out. So I was interested to see how they would handle a loss where I allowed 5 goals. It couldn't have been better. All they talked about was how well I played and how much worse it would have been with another goalie. They all apologized for the crappy defenseman, and the captain told me after everyone left that they will find something to do with him, but he wouldn't be playing D anymore.

Too bad you didn't get them last week. Clearance was 35% off. The price on the G2s, even with only 15% off is pretty good too. If you can wait, they may give another sale starting in a week or two. You can get the 2s for the same price as the 1s.

Or you could do something really easy, and much more useful like that. lol

Come to think of it, if you had a full size laptop with a webcam, and a stick and puck session without a lot of people, you could bring the laptop on the ice and use the webcam to watch yourself in real time on the screen. Not ideal, but help.

If you have a friend or someone you could bring with you with an ipad, that would be very helpful also. You could record yourself doing movements different ways, and then go back and watch the video while you're still on the ice to see how different things affect you. I've done that a few times while coaching in adult clinics, both goalie and skating out.

The camp I did, they had a giant mirror the size of an easel blackboard that they rolled out onto the ice. You'd get in your stance and do movements in front of it. That way you could actually see yourself WHILE the coach was correcting you. It was so unbelievably helpful. Having someone teach you hands on is great. Having someone show you video of yourself and what you need to fix is also good, but not quite as it requires memory to fix in the future. Having both at the same time, in real time, is incredible. That's why I posted those videos. you're good with editing. Maybe you can edit something to mesh those with video of you to get a better idea of the differences. It's obviously not nearly as good as what you're going to get at GGSU. But it's a nice place to start, even if it only helps a little. Definitely good progress for sure. You should be happy about it. Please don't take any of my input as being critical.

I know it. I was talking to someone about the Weekend Warriors camp and explaining how without someone there showing you exactly what to do, you just can't learn as quickly. We haven't been playing since we were kids. We haven't had coaching as we developed, and more importantly we haven't had coaching on modern concepts. there's just so much that we'd never learn if someone didn't directly tell us or show us. I don't even mean monumental changes. Dumb little things have made big improvements in my game. A goalie coach telling me to get a longer paddle because I was holding my hand too low - I stopped getting beat 5 hole. snapping your heels after each movement to set your feet. Lining up with the puck, not the shooter (which like mindblowing to me given my background as a defenseman). Even playing D, little things from the WWHA camp have really improved my game - pivoting towards the middle to receive a breakout pass rather than skating towards the boards, switching to the right side since I'm right handed has made a tremendous difference, going to a lower flex and lie has made my shots and passes harder, how to line up on faceoffs. These are all things, and i'm sure there are many more, that I wouldn't have even known to think about if I wasn't told by a coach. Legends Camp is going to do wonders for you. You're definitely better than when you started. And Legends Camp is going to be like a light bulb going off in your head. The goalie camp I did was pretty far over my level too, but it didn't matter. I was still learning. My warm ups are 3 minutes. I get on the ice as they open the door. Then skate 2 laps to loosen up, and do a little stretching by the boards. One round of shots in a semi-circle each direction. Then I'll stay down while guys are shooting and try to move around on the ice to make the saves. After the horn blows, I'll scrape the crease and do pendulums until the faceoff. It's not much time, but I try to make it most effective for me.

It won't let me edit, so I'll double post. You can practice this stuff at home too if you have a slippery-ish floor, just like Maria is in the video. Wear sneakers, put on hockey socks, and a folded microfiber towel makes a great sliding pad. Use something to mark out a center spot and just push back and forth. You can work on two or three pushes in a row too, once you get better at controlling your weight.

It has to do with the way you drop from your stance. It's actually a progression of the way you used to drop forward onto both knees with your feet behind you. Now you're getting a leg out to the side, which covers more net. But to do that, you drop with all your weight onto one knee, and end up leaning that way. Technically, you need to learn how to drop straight down by bringing both knees together and driving them into the ice. Of course, that doesn't really help explain HOW to get yourself to do that. My suggestion would be to force yourself to work on that whenever you can - during warm ups, during stoppages, between periods, open ice, stick and puck, whatever. Even in warmups, you can just stay down in the correct position with your wegiht centered and both knees down. Then get used to moving your head and torso into the shot from that position. Work on using both legs to kick out from the middle, instead of just your left, and do it without leaning to the opposite side as the leg you kick. You can have the exact same warm ups as now if your team is smart enough to not dome you. Here's a video of Tretiak warming up and all of the exercises he would do. You aren't playing as old of a style as him, especially with the pad stacks and kick saves. But you can see how he is controlling and centering his weight, and then apply that to your technique. The drill he is doing without pads on where he looks like a Bolshevik dancer may very helpful for you to try at home or something. It'll get you to kick with both legs while centering your weight. I used to drop just like you. Then I went to a coach who had me do these "Tretiak-like" drills. We'd just get in a stance and he'd fire a puck to one side. We just were supposed to drop and make a leg save (modern butterfly, not kick save) to each side and get the stick going that direction. then we got up and he did it to the other side. If you have good teammates, maybe you can work it into the end of warmups. The pendulum drill may help too. Drop to your knees with weight centered. Lift one knee and engage the skate blade, then push hard enough to move two feet. After you push, bring your knees back together, and as you are sliding engage the leading skate blade. Use your momentum to bring that knee up and then push back the other way. Do that a few times back and forth. The trick is to keep your body centered, but your weight over the push and then trailing leg. Then use the momentum to load your weight over the other leg for the push, again keeping your body centered. Here are a few videos of what I mean. The last is a third by Maria Mountain without gear on that really breaks down the mechanics of it. It's pretty helpful.

And really watching the video again, you almost always drop into that half butterfly on your right knee, regardless of where the play is or the shot is going. Get out of that habit. Drop to both knees, or at least pull a Lundqvist and drop with your body centered and one leg slightly up (I do this a lot). You are taking your head and body out of the shooting angle on every shot to your left. And you are severely limiting any mobility because having your weight that off center grounds you in place. You'll notice you reach for a lot of pucks, especially with your stick. While I agree that using your stick is generally better than a pad when possible, you should still be moving into the shot with your body and head (now called "head trajectory"). You are dropping straight down and reaching. You are definitely more fluid than you were a while ago. And your recoveries are also much improved. Now work on controlling your center of gravity.

It's a little hard to see what happens, but it looks like the shot goes off your defenseman? That's a little flukey. But you never moved to attempt to adjust to the new angle. I get you're focused on the shooter. But you need to be aware of who is around you. Once that puck is passed, you've got to get your head around and find the new target and try to get your body into the angle. A butterfly push might have made that an easy save. It's bang-bang and happened quickly, but if you were able to get down and then into the new angle and depth it might have caught your shoulder or glove. If you look, you'll notice that you dropped onto your right leg (and even leaned to your right with all your weight and body), even though the play was to your left. You moved away from the new angle instead of into it. Maybe if you even dropped into a full butterfly instead of the half, your body would have been covering more of the net.

I preordered mine before they came out, so it's a G1 as old as can be. I haven't had so much as a broken buckle or stretched out strap. I don't think the design is going anywhere. They'll probably even improve it in the G3.

I would have loved that. The chance to work on things and have some shooters willing to help would be awesome. I'd take that over a drop in or open hockey any day. I've never had a stinger in it, even in the usual places like the ribs, triceps, or collarbone. I even made a save off the outside of the elbow the other night. that's something that really could have hurt. In fact, it hit so solid the puck went up in the air a good 15 feet before coming back down into the corner. Nothing.

This was a problem of mine also until I got the Ritual Pro c/a. The hard plastic arms and rubbery floaters has helped with my ability to either trap pucks or deflect them away depending on what I want to do.

Why? I understand not wanting to get rung, but that warm up time is important for timing and feeling the puck. I won't take dekes because that's how you get hurt (though I will come out and move like it's a breakaway, I just don't try to make the save). But to not go down at all is silly. We're low level beer league goalies. We need as much time to work on our technique and movements as possible. It doesn't make any sense to me to purposely decline to use the time you are actually given to work on things. I will take a round or two of shots, and then stay down and just slide from one shooter to the next to work on engaging my edges and pushes. I'll also track rebounds after the first round or two of shots so I'm in the habit of doing that in a game.

First game with the team that wanted me to try out was last night. I had been telling the captain since the beginning he had to know me, but he kept saying he didn't. I walked into the room and he looked at me and said, "Oh it's you! That's awesome!". Uh really? I told you that you knew who I was. So there ended my probationary period. We played the worst team. I think I got 6 or 8 shots total. Maybe not even that many. But they were mostly good shots that I had to be sharp to stop. First shot was nearly half way through the first, and it was my own defenseman redirecting a pass on a 2 on 1 on net while I was sliding across for the shooter. I had to extend back as I was moving and just got a pad on it. A good blocker save on a partial breakaway. A very good pad save on a shot from a pass out from behind the net to the opposite side. I thought my try out was over on the goal though. It was their player coming over the blue line 1 on 2. He had just done this two times and dumped the puck on net. So I was looking for an open teammate to move the dump in to and he shot it harder than expected, and it kind of knuckled. I had to drop into a butterfly instead of just putting my glove behind my stick, so i kind of got caught inbetween. When I dropped, I landed on my stick blade and trapped it under my thigh rise. The stick got stuck when I tried use it to stop the puck and it slid 5 hole into the net. Seeing how they had reacted to their last goalie, I thought it was going to be a problem. Especially since that made it 2-1 in a game we were dominating. But they all thought it was hilarious. We ended up winning 5-1 going away. After the game, everyone was optimistic. They all said I was exactly what they were looking for. The joke was that I allowed shots in warmups, which was an improvement from the get go. (which devolved into jokes about how I looked better in warm ups, or they should have been taking shots from the blue line lol) I guess their last goalie didn't want to take warm up shots. Ever. And then he would often allow a weak goal at the beginning or at least be shaky because he hadn't seen any shots. So it was all much ado about nothing. I'm not worried about their attitudes at all. It should be a fun season.

It's definitely a learning process. Something else you might want to consider is stiffer pads. I used to give a lot of rebounds and second chances when I had my Summit pads. They were really soft (like Vaughns) and the rebounds would come off to the same areas as you, just out of reach. Since I switched to Brian's pads, which have a stiffer foam core, it's not a problem anymore. Rebounds go into the corners and even ones that used to end up just out of my reach now go further away - either getting behind the guys looking for rebounds or giving me time to get in position for the next shot.

Maybe you need to work on your rebound control, particularly if they aren't going that far away. There can't be any rebound attempts if you don't leave any or direct them away from danger. Something to think about: who is the better or more effective goalie - the one who makes the highlight reel third or even fourth rebound save or the one who doesn't leave 3 or 4 rebounds?

Season starts Wednesday and I didn't have to try out. So I'll have a goalie spot again, which is good. What's not is the other team that I play out for now told me today the other guy got hurt and is out for the season. So they want me to play goal. I don't really know if I want to play goal twice a week and only skate out once. So now I'm stuck again. Why can't this ever be easy?!