Law Goalie

My shin guards are 37"... tongues under...

Dear god, man, take care of that! FWIW, 99% isopropanol sprayed in the pads is what my friendly neighbourhood germaphobic nurse recommended for sterilisation - that, an equipment-sized autoclave, or a hospital ozone chamber.

Oh damn. :(

$140 for what might be the best steel on the market seems reasonable when you consider what a lot of guys pay for OPS... Very interested to hear more, jimmy, as you start getting impressions from customers and maybe a chance to take them for a spin yourself.

The right Titan felt like a 2x4.

Heh - I asked because one of my defencemen has a wood stick he keeps on the bench for dedicated PK-duty against asshole-teams. Can't 'lay the lumber' with a few hundred ounces of hollow carbon fibre, now, can you?

Is that Sherwood 5030 your designated 'cross-checking' stick? :)

A whole new *custom* glove, no less...

Yeah... we go a little overboard sometimes. :)

Why are you playing with half a stick? :)

The gear is lovely and all, figgifumi, but goddamn - that is the most beautiful gear-bench I've ever seen. Spare Tuuks on the rack with the screwdrivers and ratchets: nice. :)

Niiice 301s...

If he comes back, put him on a 100' radius...

God that Modano curve is beautiful. The Mission ones I got were a rounded toe, thankfully.

Tight as a drum, actually - though using Bushwalk Lacing, so it doesn't bite as much. The plastic insert in the tongue of the Flexlites lets me put a lot of pressure forward and flex the skate pretty well without much strain. It seems to give me a lot more power. Tendon guard has yet to be a problem, though I have started putting my lower calf strap inside it, just in case. I love 'em: worth every hour of cursing and sweating over the bench-vice and drill-press in my in-laws' basement. :)

To answer the barrage of questions... heh. They are indeed Mission pro stocks . Exactly - I couldn't find a goalie skate that offered either. Now, the really crazy part is that the Flexlites are neither deep enough nor wide enough in the forefoot for me - I'm stretch them laterally with a heat-gun, and I'm trying to pull the instep higher with webbing and more heat. A huge difference - the difference between me not being able to walk for two weeks after a hard skate, or playing basically pain-free for the first time in two years. The guy who originally did it (or so the story goes ) was John McLeod, the inventor of the OverDrive blade. I've since met him a couple of times, and he's using Micron 10-90s in Bauer cowlings. Corey Wogtech has apparently dabbled with it too, as has Jerret 'the other JR' Rooney. . The scary thing is, the Flexlites are actually significantly too shallow for me. Still they're better than the Daousts. I love the cowlings, but I still mis the 9K steel that an idiot sharpener destroyed (though, to be fair, his shop replaced them with what they had - 5K/V6.0 regular-width runners. Same steel, not tapered. If I ever have to buy replacements (this stuff lasts for bloody ever), it'll be 9K steel. I actually find I have way more mobility. Every time I plant an edge, I get fantastic drive. I've probably never skated this well in my life. The goalie pads are in the basement, since I figured I shouldn't be posting more than the toes in a Players' Gear thread. :) Hell, when I got taught to play goal, it was 100% standup (admittedly, my teams never had goalie coaches). It's only been in the last few years I started taking private coaching in the newer techniques. I still play a pretty scrambly, hybrid style, and I've found that stiffer, higher skates make a huge improvement there too. I have to say, though, the conversion process was a huge pain in the ass -- I mean like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring. It had all the annoyances of swapping holders (hole overlap, mismatched pitches, all that fun stuff), and the added benefits of working blind and in cramped quarters inside the cowling. That, and player boots never, EVER match cowlings in pitch, no matter how much you shim the heel or toe, so I had to spend hours finding the best balance before starting to drill blindly through the cowling. Still, I can't argue with the result, since those skates will be the only things that keep me playing hockey.

Nice collection of pads you've got there - and 9Ks. :)

..hahahaha it's not what it looks like..the puck was right there..but yes i did ;) ...and then the goalie punched me..lol i hate goalies... :( So you like playing posts-and-crossbar for hours at a time? heh

I noticed, I was just more interested in the 709s. :)

Probably because it gives people different options which is bad for companies with the price of today's gear. ;) Varioflex is still available on their high-end figure skates, just not for hockey. I'm slowly convincing myself that Graf is the wrong way to go for custom skates. I may spend the extra money and time to weasel my way into a pair of 8090-esque S9's, or a custom Flexlite or something. I wish my LHS dealt with Mission...

I love those 1st-generation 709s... gorgeous, gorgeous skates. I wonder if I could make that Varioflex system part of my custom order... heh.

No, the point of the S9 is to tease me with the prospect of an 8090 that I can't get. Damn juniors and their equipment managers... :(

Oh dear god... :)

JR's going to get a call from Gretzky, asking to borrow his shank for amission of mercy...