Warrior Messiah Wheeled Goalie Bag (2010)

[Law Goalie 147]

Since Mike (Netminder32) and I are both reviewing the 2010 Messiah wheel bag for Warrior, and his review already includes excellent descriptions and pictures of the bag, I will try wherever possible to avoid duplication and focus on my own insights.

Will the Messiah prove to be the king of bags, the savior of my equipment on the long, repeated exodus from home to the promised ice and back to the link of meat and whiskey?

Product Specifications for the Warrior Messiah 2010 wheeled goalie bag

Chassis: two-wheeled with telescopic luggage-style aluminum handle

Listed Dimensions: 42" x 20" x 20" (this is from Warrior's site; these dimensions seem to vary elsewhere)

Shipping Weight: 19lbs

Pockets: two internal nylon skate pockets at each end, three mesh laundry pockets along the length of the bag.

List of Equipment Baggage:

36" Reebok PS2 pads (NHL-spec)

Flexlite boots in Reebok cowlings (size 8) w/ a spare set of blades

NHL-legal glove and blocker

Mask in padded mask bag

Custom Brown C/A (size XL)

Bauer Reactor 6 pants (size L 34"-38") with attached Brown knee-pads

Maltese GPS gel combo (neck protection - future review fodder)

Vaughn Epic goalie jock

Shock Doctor cup (for Lycra tights)

Underwear (Nike Dri-Fit top and tights)

Shower gear (sandals, towel, all-purpose gel soap - who needs shampoo?)

Edge Pro-Tech post-covers (another future review)

Sundry rolls of tape

Small Crown Royal bag with extra clips, straps, laces, screws, etc.

My previous bag was an SMI Monster Goalie Bag (40x20x20), slightly smaller and lighter than the Messiah. I absolutely love this bag, and having compared it to everything on the market, SMI's is, in my opinion, the gold standard. There are several other design points and differences worth noting, in the order by which they would generally be observed.

Warrior has chosen to go with two zippers in parallel down the centre of the bag, rather than two zippers in serial around a C-shaped opening: that is, when you unzip the Warrior bag, you're opening a long, relatively thin space in the top of the bag, rather than unzipping the entire top of the bag as a panel and letting it flop over the side of the bag. There are a couple of reasons to like this decision. First, the two parallel zippers create a nice visual match with the chassis (see below), and allow for an overall cleaner look. Second, because Warrior has gone without the webbing reinforcement that belts around the top quarter of most goalie bags, which again allows them to streamline the visual design of the bag, having the zippers down the middle of the top gives the bag an extra built-in right angle, and a slightly more defined structure without the need for an exterior belting. How this will bear out structurally under a full load remains to be seen. At a first touch, however, there is one VERY annoying point to be observed: both zippers need to be opened in order to get anything in or out of the bag, and the small nylon pull that joins them is woefully unsuited to the task, since it pulls both of them at about 45-degrees to the track of the teeth. The difference between pulling two zippers over a shorter distance, or one zipper around the top of the bag, isn't much, but pulling two zippers as once is a lot less handy than pulling just one.

One of the things Warrior decided against is the transparent external ID pocket that is common to most goalie bags. My first thought was what I was going to do with the variety of stuff I had jammed in there on my SMI bag, but, in truth, all of it ended up finding a new home pretty easily.

Rather than using traditional metal grommet 'breather holes' in the bag, Warrior has gone with two long panels of rubberised mesh running on each side of the bag's zippered opening. This both improves the ventilation and, once again, makes the design a little sleeker. What I'm not 100% sure on at this point is the durability of this rubberised mesh. It has been on some bags (like the RBK/CCM pad bag I use for coaching) that have not held up well. Add to this the fact that I have never in my life seen a single problem with a metal grommet in a hockey bag, apart from a tiny bit of rust, and this could be an unfortunate tradeoff in function against a slight visual improvement. I will definitely be watching this.

As Mike observed, the Messiah bag has only its aluminum luggage-style handle, mounted at the bottom of the bag and telescoping in and out of a zippered enclosure, and the two de rigeur hockey-bag shoulder straps. The SMI bag has a more traditional setup, lacking the luggage grip, but with heavy webbing handles at each end of the bag, about halfway up from the bottom: the front handle serves to pull the bag on its wheels, and together, they make it much easier to lift the bag in and out of a car or a storage space, or up and down stairs. Because the Messiah bag lacks these two webbing handles, and its luggage handle is, out of necessity, so close to the ground, the traditional shoulder straps must be used to hoist the bag in and out any given space -- a movement which is, in my experience, slightly less comfortable and ergonomically efficient. I will not pass judgment yet, but I will observe this difference closely as the review progresses.

(As a brief side-note, Mike has planned to add webbing handles at each end of his Messiah bag. I will not do so, partly since it was his idea, and keeping my bag 'as God intended', if you'll pardon the blasphemous pun, will allow for an interesting contrast in our reviews. However, I will point out that in every bag I've seen, these handles are not just stitched onto the ends of the bag; rather, the nylon webbing is sewn into the bag's structure, belt it all the way around, but with just enough excess to form the two handles at each end. I'm not sure how Mike's experiment will work, but it's definitely worth watching.)

The Messiah's chassis is built around two square "aircraft-grade" aluminum tubes that run down the middle of the entire length of the bag, providing a rigid link from handle to wheels, and augmented by heavy nylon runners on the outside edges, with additional steel reinforcement in key spots. The SMI uses a wide plastic sheet, riveted into the wheel-base and three of the same nylon runners, that covers the full width of the bag, but only three-quarters of the length - call it a built-in 'sag' point. This is a bit like the difference between internal-frame and external-frame alpine packs. As a result, the Messiah bag is much, much easier to wheel about in every respect. To quote the advertising of approximately 68% of the cars manufactured in America, "it handles like a dream."

There is, however, one drawback to all this aluminum and steel in the base of a bag: it's generally not good to risk exposing your skate blades to other metals. With my skates placed blade-down (as they are intended to be) in the internal skate pockets at each end of the bag, there is just enough 'play' for the skate inside the pocket when bouncing the bag around (over a threshold, for example) to let the skate blades come into contact with the aluminum tubing down the middle of the bag. Because Warrior only covers the chassis with a thin sheet of nylon (maybe 320D) on the inside of the bag, it seems like enough to chip an edge, especially if you use a deep hollow (which means thinner, taller, less durable edges). Personally, this is of zero consequence to me, since I invariably pack my skates inside my pants for protection; it also wouldn't bother somebody who used skate-guards, and even soakers might be enough. These skate pockets also lack a closure system - commonly velcro - which isn't a big deal where skates are concerned but is an issue if you use those pockets for tape or other miscellany. (Another aside: the combination of velcro skate pockets and webbing handles at the ends of the bag means that pulling on a handle almost invariably pulls the velcro apart - a small design hiccough I've never seen a way around.)

The other point which Mike first brought up about the Messiah's chassis is its two-wheel design. Historically, most goalies have preferred a three-wheel design, because the third wheel in the middle of the bag prevented it from sagging between the two outer wheels, where the load is usually heaviest. Mike has covered this thoroughly, and I won't bother repeating him. I will, however, observe that the two-wheel design Warrior chose for the Messiah has a few inherent advantages. First, fewer wheels mean less resistance and an easier pull. Second, as time goes on and the wheels begin to break down, this becomes even more noticeable: that third wheel is great until its axel starts rusting, or you get a bit of gravel or other aggregate detritus stuck in there, and then it's like an anchor holding the bag to the ground while you try to pull it. The wheels Warrior selected for the Messiah are also much, much better than the standard rollerblade wheels on most bags. The Messiah's wheels are much bigger (about 1/2" in radius), made of a much tougher material, and feature a very defined tread pattern that works wonders over rough surfaces.

Returning to the bag's interior, the three mesh pockets along one side of the bag (lengthwise) are a very common placement. I like them, and my prior SMI bag lacks them. The SMI places one large mesh pocket on the underside of its zippered top flap, which is both impossible with the Messiah's design, and frankly not ideal anyway.

Thus far my initial impressions. I'll post a first-use review shortly.