Sande 980

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

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Product: 14" Sande Max980 Gloves

Details: Nylon, PE inserts, Split finger, Air-knit finger gussets, Trigger finger

Fit: Sande 980s are the loosest fitting gloves I have ever tried on. They have probably about 2 cm of additional room on the back of my hand compared to Eagles and are positively cavernous inside. I am somewhat divided on whether I like this feature or not. They are loose enough to almost fall off if your hand is hanging at your side. This concerned me at first, but from experience, I found that they arent going to fall off during a game when you're gripping your stick or hanging onto someone's arm. The fingers also had an additional 0.5-1cm of play above them (my fingers are pretty normal in their chunkiness). To me, this extra space is undesireable. On the positive side, the extra room at the back of the hand, in combination with the flared cuff gives you literally limitless wrist mobility which can only aid your stick handling. After using these gloves, every other glove I've tried off the shelf has felt constricting. The additional room inside I think has also contributed to better heat management. I used these gloves for one season or rollerhockey and after my first game, I was surprised that my hands and my gloves were almost completely dry. A definate positive for me.

Break-in: These gloves have virtually no break in time. Perhaps it is due in part to them being nylon, but these Sande 980s were supple out of the box. There were a couple places in the fingers which rubbed irritatingly but I fixed this by oven molding the gloves. Heating the gloves and pressing on the problem areas solved the problem.

Protection: I have not had any bad experiences with the protection these gloves provide. They have padding in all the areas that other top end gloves provide, and have the PE inserts for added impact dispersion. One thing that may concern some people is that the cuffs are flared so wide as to sacrifice coverage in this area. I foresee this being a hazard to people playing in leagues where slashes to the wrist are expected, but it hasn't been an issue in the leagues I play in. The gloves also have a locked thumb which I thought might be difficult transitioning to, coming from a Mission A.L.T. thumb, but I was wrong. The locked thumb does not impinge on thumb mobility at all.

Weight: The best feature of this glove. It is virtually weightless, like, wow I still can't get over it. I weighed it on an analytical balance. Each glove was 7.5 Oz . The only other top-end nylon glove I had to compare them to were Eagle CP94s at the LHS and the Sandes blew them away (in my subjective opinion since I didnt have a scale to weigh the Eagles).

Durability: Roller hockey surfaces are quite harsh on equipment but these gloves have stood up to the challenge. The nylon is perfect with only blemishes caused by dirt (white gloves sigh) whereas synthetic leather gloves gets torn up.

Palm: My Sandes came with a reinforced Nash palm. The palm after a season of roller hockey is still as supple as the first day (no crust). I will see after using them for ice hockey if this remains true. One thing I noticed is that the palm on my top hand is beginning to pill a bit which to me seems a bit premature in comparison to my former Mission gloves which are still perfect after 2 seasons. I'm going to keep my eye on it. Otherwise, the palms are still in mint condition.

Intangibles: The one thing I would like to comment more extensively about is the Sande trigger finger. For those who haven't seen it before, the trigger finger is essentially a pocket for your index finger that seperates it from the protective padding. It's a bit similar to the semi-detached pocket your thumb slips into, except the trigger finger has a bit more range. I for one am a convert to the trigger finger because I believe it has made a big difference in my feel for the puck. I didnt notice it before, but with my Mission Warp Zeros, I was using my first knuckle a lot when gripping the stick because the padding on the index interfered with the thumb and I couldn't close my index completely around the shaft of the stick. With the trigger finger, I was now able to do this (without sacrificing protection). Being able to wrap my index around the shaft really helped translate puck feel from my blade to my hands. I can't stress this positive enough. The only drawback to the trigger finger, and perhaps the looseness of the gloves in general, is that my finger would sometimes come out of the finger when i put the gloves on, such as when coming off the bench, and it is a bit of an aquired skill to fit ur index back into the trigger finger and not have it slip into the bit of space underneath behind the trigger finger, like the finger pocket for a regular glove. Hope thats clear.

Conclusions and comments: A while ago, there was no other piece of hockey equipment that I desired more than a pair of Eagles. My experience with this glove really deminished that desire in me because looking at the selection at my LHS, Eagle gloves do not have the same features as I have gotten used to in the Sandes (except for mustang palms which I think are quite nice). For those of you who haven't experienced nylon gloves, or air-knit gussets, or the trigger finger, I highly recommend it. For me, these features raise the bar on what a great hockey glove should have. I think its a shame that Sandes are not more widely available because in my opinion they are a well made glove. However, they do invite custom orders directly (I'm pretty sure of this) in comparison to the other big name brands where you go through a dealer. To me, this is usually a positive. I am aware that some other members have had um, bad experiences with their glove orders but I have not experienced this. I actually think Gary went above and beyond with his customer service, even following up with an email a half season later to see how I was liking them.