Law Goalie

There was one guy at a university skate who kept doing that CONSTANTLY. He was so clueless that he did the exact same thing try to call for passes from his own team AND to try to confuse the other team. Every two seconds he was on the ice, whether his team or the other team had the puck -- tap-tap-TAP. Nothing verbal, never in position -- tap-tap-TAP. Guys with the puck are looking straight at him -- tap-tap-TAP. Finally, after redlining for an entire shift and tapping out mating calls to every woodpecker in the province, he got a breakaway. Guy puts his head down and starts chugging away like he's got Sami Pahlsson on his tail. Sensing the opportunity, I flip my stick into a shooting grip, skate off to the side of the net -- tap-tap-TAP. His head shoots up, and for one precious second, he hesitates -- and both benches started guffawing just as he shoots. I never moved. Possibly the best goal I ever conceded, apart from the time I setup a power-play one-timer against myself.

As much as I hate that kind of pseudo-hockey, the thing that is driving me absolutely up the wall in every situation these days is the braindead stick-on-stick crap that happens as a result of it. If I have one more goal screened, baffled, or deflected past me by some reaching moron who decided that his stick-blade had a better chance of stopping the puck than my entire body, I'm going to start burning shit down. There is a real art to positional defence in shinny: keeping your body between the player and a better shooting area, denying the pass with your stick, allowing the shot but cutting him off if he tries to walk in. You would think that most shinny defenders would at least be attempting to do this. Instead, 90% of my work in shinny is made more difficult by my defencemen, who are invariably far better as screening me and tipping in pucks than anybody on the other side of the game, and who work incredibly hard in order to do so.

I'll bet he did!-- most unsung repeat 50-goal scorer in NHL history...

David has lately been getting some very positive notices for his physical play: that he's hard to knock off the puck, doesn't shy away, seems increasingly to use his strength as well as his finesse to keep the play going. I looked back through a few pictures, and he does indeed appear to be maturing physically and adding significant muscle mass in addition to learning how to use his body better in the pro game. Nice to see that side coming out; he never struck me as the skill-only wallflower that some people painted him for.

I guess it's possible that a retail curve could resemble its pro namesake's actual curve, but that strikes me as pretty far down the marketing priority list. Correlating best-selling curve to biggest endorsement is the most obvious one; then maybe using newer, hipper names to boost sales of curves that are slipping down the chart; then maybe an attempt to match a curve to the generalities of the pro's position (ie. Lidstrom's curve being marketted as "good for defencemen"); and then, maybe, you'd consider proximity to the real curve. Total speculation, but it probably shakes down something like that.

Ahahahahaha

Hahaha - one of my favourite similar moments was when a very bored and very witty salesman elaborated "The Fish Metaphor" for customers to me. The 'Holy Mackerel' had to be my favourite: potentially profitable, but extremely oily and believes himself to have been sent by God Himself to nibble at your store. Turned out I was a big-mouthed bass. :(

To clarify... a big spender would be somebody who buys a full boat of new goalie gear every year, without fail - say five grand for the sake of argument - plus incidentals; for a player, that would be a full set per year plus being an enormous OPS-whore. A family buying for multiple kids would also qualify. I'm not necessarily talking about being a team buyer or anything. One can, of course, be a big spender and also an arsehole.

Oddly, I've noticed that as a regular *not* asking for a discount results in more discounts in most high-end retail stores including LHS's. The jerks (whether incessant nickel-and-dimers or just general wankers) never get a break, but for truly good customers (not necessarily big spenders but just decent people) there's always something, whether it's a few bucks off, free alterations or getting tossed a few rolls of tape or a pocket square here and there.

Attaboy!

I really hope the Blues are dumb enough to give up on him... and trade him to Ottawa or Montreal, so I can see more of his games!

The Iliotibial Band - can't ever quite seem to hear it.

Good to know - thanks for the evaluation.

Eh, not quite. It's a different alloy, and the degree of polishing is probably impossible to achieve without serious metallurgical equipment.

Yeah, it seems to be catching on around here: people are realising that 10% more of a superior steel is worth the premium. Still not much Velocity at retail, but again, I get the sense that's because team orders are eating a lot of it up. The only one I still can't figure is STEP's RBK goalie blades, which seem to be made of solid platinum, given the price.

No Flexlites... grrr...

Whether or not he scores goals, he's on pace to double his point-total from last year: pretty impressive. I'm sure as opposing teams start to key more on his passing option, he'll get the extra time and space to attack the net himself.

Could be fatigue, but more likely, overtraining or otherwise mistraining. I knew a girl at Harvard who - I shit you not - broke her hip because of overtraining. Hasn't been on the ice since. Over time as the methods focussed down more and more on specific unstable movements, the joint was weakened progressively until she broke it. Her surgeons were absolutely horrified. Johnson was, I'll grant you, a complete freak accident, but even those can be hugely exacerbated if they occur during bad training.

He looks terrific out there - drew a penalty, and only got another one himself because he tried to make a play and got stuck in a lane. edit: with this many posts, you'd think I would know there was a chat function... then again, you'd also think that if I were making a cocoa, I'd remember to put cocoa powder in it...

Step just needs to come up with a completely absurd name for their steel... 'Thermablades' being taken, why not 'Wonkablades'?

I flat out don't get the insistence on rushed sharpenings. Hell, I *want* the guy making sure everything's squared away and taking his time between passes.

We're way beyond 40 acres now...

And what does it say about this guy that he's worried about us being too worried about our gear? What does that make him, a second-tier jock-sniffer?

Eric Weinrich pro-stock. I have to say, despite generally considering visors/cages to be mundane and functional items, that orange is just dead sexy.

I'm betting he did - he's got at least three options at that frame, and it looks like he's going upstairs.