Warrior Messiah: Epic Review (Full Set)

[Law Goalie 147]

BOOK I: INTRODUCTION

The Argument: the humble Reviewer thanks those responsible for the opportunity to put the full Messiah set to the test, and lays the groundwork for his hopefully comprehensive survey.

Once again, I (as should anyone who reads this) can express only gratitude to JR Boucicaut of Modsquad Hockey, along with Keith Perera and Frank Dagneau of Warrior Hockey, for providing respectively the ideal venue and the equipment for this review. I hope it’s instructive and beneficial to all. It’s belatedness is only a function of the pressing needs of far less interesting articles subject to slightly more stringent peer review.

YEARS PLAYED: 15 total, with a big gap between years 10 & 11.

CURRENT LEVEL: goalie coach, with A-level shinny and the odd beer league game or tournament on request.

OTHER RELEVANT EQUIPMENT USED: Brown 2100 knee-pads (re: pads & pants), Vaughn Epic 8800 jock (re: pants), Brown custom C/A (re: pants & gloves).

I’ll detail my initial impressions piece by piece below. My wife’s, however, were succinctly illustrative as always. She, a total outsider to hockey (though damn good at getting sandwiches for us!), immediately remarked that the Messiah gear looked “very high quality.” When I explained that these were, in fact, made with the same materials (excepting the unique dye-sublimated polyester) as every other goalie company, she was very surprised and quite impressed. She also commented on the strength and sophistication of the branding, and this is a woman not usually given to brand-awareness. Using her as a focus group of one, I’d imagine that Warrior’s design for the Messiah has a powerful effect on the decisions of intelligent non-specialist consumers.

With so much amalgamation in the market (Mission into Itech, Itech into Bauer, TPS into Sherwood, Glenn Miller’s into Vaughn’s Michigan plant), the specialisation (Brown) and direct consumer focus of established masters (Pete Smith, etc.), so much of the retail variety of years past at retail has vanished. It’s great to see Warrior bring a new look and some new ideas on the scene, with the craftsmanship to back it up – and, as I found out, the wit and will to make substantial changes on the fly.

Because this is a relatively long and complex review, involving many pieces of interacting equipment, I’ll put my conclusive ratings and opinions right up front, with the full review following in chapters:

Messiah Glove – 9/10 (A+)

Messiah Blocker – 9.75/10 (A+)

Messiah Pads – 8/10 (A-)

Messiah Pants – 8/10 (A-)

Messiah Wheel-Bag (interim rating) – 8.5/10 (A+)

---

Complete Messiah Set – 8.25/10 (low A/high A-)

Would I personally buy the Warrior Messiah set? No. They simply aren’t what I prefer to use, and my preferences are sufficiently well-formed that they have been largely reconfirmed by my experiments during the review. Those preferences, however, cannot lower the impression of an extremely strong set of equipment.

Would I recommend the Messiah gear? Absolutely – without hesitation. That’s the better question to ask, and that’s the most objective assessment I can give.

The gloves in particular are among the best of their kind; the blocker is bar none the best paddle-down design I’ve ever used or seen. Only the Martin Paddle-Flex was comparable, in my experience, and that had its own unique set of drawbacks. That said, it’s not a one-trick pony: the Messiah blocker is simply excellent. Anyone who likes the Lefebvre Reebok Premier/Revoke gloves (excepting the PS3, and allowing for break-angle differences) will likely love the Messiah gloves, which are significantly lighter and easier on the hand out of the box than the Reeboks (and I am a big fan of Mr. Lefebvre’s work).

While the stock pants and pads may not entirely agree with me, and do not offer all of the end-user customisation which might allow for that, they are for the most part exemplary. While I had some initial concern about protectiveness, the pants are solid and delightfully mobile – definitely the most flexible, unorthodox-friendly pro-level pants I've ever tried. I simply couldn‘t make them get in my way – except with the five-hole blocks (which is a long story in itself). The pads, similarly, while not my cup of tea, were superbly designed. The sliding surfaces may be the most intelligent construction I’ve seen, and on-ice performance was equally impressive (with several caveats about durability I address in the full review).

Combined with Warrior’s impressive headway into the professional goaltending ranks, I have no doubt that their equipment will quickly move past these minor issues to become a major player in the market. They’ve shown not only that they can make a great product, but that they can figure out quickly when something is wrong (as with the original M1 glove), and make rapid and significant changes to address it. When you consider that it took three years and an NHL rule-change for Lefebvre to give up on the lamentable ‘3D calf’ design that Turco pushed for in the first RBK pads, Warrior’s nimble response with the latest Messiah glove is almost a revelation by comparison.

BOOK II: THE GLOVE

The Argument: the Messiah glove is a excellent piece of engineering that feels light and balanced on the hand with beautiful closure; it strongly favours an Allaire/Quebecois-style ‘handshake’ glove position.

The glove (or trapper or trap, or catcher or catching glove, or whatever you fancy) I received is the Messiah mark 3 (which Warrior calls the ‘M3’). The original Messiah glove (M1) had a one-piece cuff, a triple-tee, and a more ‘upright’ break, that is, at a higher angle to the wrist. The Messiah M2 was the same design as the original, but with a two-piece cuff and a single-tee pocket; the differences were largely cosmetic, though the M2 may have been a touch lighter because of the single-tee.

Both of those previous Warrior catching glove models (which made it just out of the beta stage and into moderate retail circulation) were, I’m sad to say, very underwhelming efforts. They really didn’t do justice to Warrior efforts in player gloves. The break was awkward both in angle and closure, the glove was remarkably shallow from palm to pocket, and the feel on the hand was simply brutal: that was not only my opinion but pretty well the consensus in the goaltending community. To their credit, Warrior listened and responded swiftly and decisively to the advice of their early adopters and testers – and they came up with a winner.

The Messiah M3 is a total departure from the previous gloves. It’s an almost complete redesign that finally reflects Warrior’s strengths in player glove design, and a very good indication of how quick on its feet this company can be. If you tried the earlier Warrior goalie gloves, you need to try this one – the difference is almost unbelievable. It may be the single biggest change between versions of the same model I’m ever seen, and is certainly among the most improved products ever in the industry.

Images from Warrior Hockey Customiser

The M3 has a two-piece cuff with a single-tee, like the M2, but with a completely different design and feel behind those largely superficial details. The glove has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, with a vastly superior break, internal palm, strapping system – you name it, Warrior improved it. The break angle is much lower, closer to a Lefebvre (Koho/Reebok) 60-degree break, or even a Vaughn T5500 (purely in terms of break angle and shape, mind you); Warrior officially diagrams it at 50 degrees:

Bear in mind that there is effectively zero agreement between companies or goaltenders about how exactly break-angle is measured, but most know the difference between a high and a low angle, and everyone has a preference.

The break itself is a thing of beauty, at least to my hands: it feels very like the TPS break that ran from the Bionic through the Xlite and Xceed to the Summit, somewhere between the old Eagle C- and U-closures (that is, somewhere between gripping a cylinder in your palm and gripping a rectangle) but much snappier. The feel on the hand is better balanced (that is, effectively lighter), more comfortable, and more secure on the hand without the need for tight strapping.

Perhaps the most significant change is in the natural orientation of the glove relative to the hand and, ultimately, to goalie’s body and the shooter. The original M1/2 Messiah, much like the Lefebvre Premier Series 3 glove and most of TPS’s gloves, was designed to work with more of a palm-out glove position:

Your humble Reviewer himself, midway through a shuffle to his left, demonstrating a nearly textbook ‘active’ glove position, thumb-up; photo by Dave Wells of Performance Goaltending.

In this stance, the goalie holds the palm of the glove facing out towards the puck – effectively aiming the pocket of the glove at the puck on the shooter’s stick – which requires the wrist to be extended (that is, with the wrist extensors activated), with the elbow behind the wrist, held out slightly ahead of and away from the body, and the thumb or (less properly) the fingers pointing up towards the ceiling. This is often described as an “active hands” position by the goalie coaches who teach it, and is ideal for catching (and blocking) pucks in front of the body, since it holds the glove in the active foveal field of vision, rather than back in the peripheral field. To maintain this glove position comfortably, the glove – specifically the cuff and wrist strapping – must be designed to support the wrist in a extended position. Traditionally, this was accomplished with a very flexible two-piece cuff; later gloves with more anatomically appropriate designs – like the TPS Bionic – placed the glove’s lowest strap above the cuff, supporting full wrist extension. On the PS3, which uses a solid EPE and plastic one-piece cuff, Lefebvre redesigned the glove to allow the wrist to enter at an angle to the cuff, as seen here in the catalogue:

Image extracted from Reebok 2010 Goalie catalogue; note the angle expressed in the bottom-right corner between the goalie’s wrist and the cuff of the glove.

This angle, and the design of the strapping, support the hand inside the glove in an extended position comfortably. Unfortunately, the M1/2 Messiah gloves did not do this very well: the intent was there, but the design and execution were lacking.

The M3 Messiah, by contrast, favours a different glove position: the ‘handshake’ or ‘fingers-forward’ position, and favours it beautifully:

Here we have Giguere and Luongo showing different stances with a ‘handshake’ glove position, and one of the Allaire brothers (Benoit, I believe) actually putting one of his students’ hands into this position, pushing the elbow in against his ribs.

Because the wrist is secured straight along the cuff of the Messiah – which is nominally a two-piece, but basically rigid in structure – the glove resists extension of the wrist but supports moderate flexion (that is, bending it in towards the body). Lefebvre calls this a “locked in wrist” in his Reebok line; the key point is that the wrist is secured to the glove below the break between the cuff and the glove itself, and the break is relatively rigid.

The major difference is that this handshake glove position all-but demands that the goalie keep his glove-side elbow close to his ribs, if not glued against it. The glove is usually held with the palm facing across the body, requiring external rotation of the elbow and shoulder in order to make the glove face the puck on the shooter’s stick. This glove position (and thus this sort of glove) is highly favoured by ‘the Allaire school’ (so called for François and Benoit Allaire) or ‘Quebec butterfly system,’ which teaches primarily a blocking game, with an absolute minimum of holes along the body so that the goalie presents a solid wall of equipment to the puck. The Allaires also teach that pucks should invariably be cradled or trapped against the body after impact, never caught in front of the body; the ‘handshake’ design of the Messiah facilitates this beautifully, making a fingers-forward position more natural and allowing the full flexion of the wrist.

(This can also turn, through sloth or neglect, into the entirely disadvantageous ‘palm down’ or ‘yo-yo’ glove position, in which the goalie holds his glove with the palm facing directly towards the ice at his feet – not a position from which to catch any puck in any manner with first reorienting.)

Yo-yo Glove

At this point, I must say simply that I have a strong preference for a palm-out ‘active’ glove. I much prefer to catch pucks in front of my body, and to catch pucks in front of my pads in the butterfly or other down positions, which a glove ahead of the plane of the body allows. I do not, however, insist that this is the only way. The M3 Messiah would be an ideal glove for a great many goalies – in fact, probably the majority – but it is not my ideal glove. It’s an excellent design and business decision by Warrior, just not one that I personally like.

That said, I have been wanting to experiment with the ‘handshake’/fingers-forward glove position, if only to understand its strengths and weaknesses better as a goalie and as a coach. So, rather than attempt to use the glove in a manner that does not suit it, I will try a little stylistic experiment to make my game fit the Messiah glove, at least for the duration of this review.

Returning to the glove itself, rather than its use in the stance, I found a superb piece of craftsmanship.

The whole glove is lined with Warrior’s bright yellow antibacterial ‘Silver Shield’ material, and the backhand butterflies wide open to dry in a matter of minutes:

This picture also gives a very good look at the three main straps: one high on the metacarpals, one lower, and the cinch-strap across the wrist. Their position relative to the hand and the main construction of the glove makes clear why the Messiah can really only be used in a ‘handshake’ orientation: the lower metacarpal strap is way too high to secure the wrist inside the glove, and the wrist-strap is so low on the cuff that it forced the wrist to follow straight along the cuff and limiting extension. Leaving the wrist-strap very loose allows the wrist to extend, but the glove become unstable.

This comparison between the M3 Messiah (leftmost) and the M1 illustrates the strap placement nicely:

2nd photo courtesy of goaliecrease.net; 3rd photo courtesy of The Goalie Crease.

On the M3, the wrist-strap is almost at the bottom of the cuff; on the M1, it’s much higher up, closer to the base of the thumb.

The new Messiah’s thumb-angle is relatively low and relaxed, holding the thumb in a natural position inside the glove, not unlike the much-lauded Vaughn T5500 (though this glove differs significantly from the 5500 in many respects). The break in the Messiah is bar-none the nicest I’ve ever felt out of the box. It snaps better than my five year-old Bionic, and that took some work to achieve. My particular demo glove had a small peculiarity, in that the thumb side of the tee (and the plastic inside) was about a centimeter too long: a tiny excess, but enough to slightly foul up the closure of the glove from stem to stern:

This was easily remedied by bending the Tee slightly toward the thumb to eat up the extra distance:

I simply did this a few times every time I was on the ice; a more permanent fix would be to unlace the thumb-side of the tee, punch a few new holes, and lace it back in the proper position. I wasn’t going to do that to a demo glove, but it is an easy fix of an issue caused by an extremely small and forgivable oversight. Apart from this minor quibble, the interactive design of the tee and the break on the Messiah is nothing short of superb – as good as my TPS benchmark.

The Messiah glove presents a relatively narrow opening aspect for the puck. (This too differs from the M1 & M2, which sat relatively ‘wide open’ on the hand.) At rest – that is, in its natural position with no force exerted – the opening of the glove is about 3.5” at the widest point across. If the fingers are extended to push open the glove, it goes to about 5”. By contrast, my Bionic is about 8” across at rest and a little over 10” extended; my Xceed NHL-spec glove is about ½” less in both.

*For some reason, I didn’t end up with a good picture of this aspect. However, if you look closely at this picture, which shoes the glove resting face-down in its natural position on the bench, you can see that there is very little distance across laced sidewalls of the Tee, or, more importantly, between the tip of the thumb (visible just to the right of the Tee, above the right ride of the open backhand) and the tips of the fingers (visible to the left of the left side of the open backhand, and just a tiny bit above it, just to the left of the Tee). You can also get a better sense of this by comparing the M1 and M3 backhand strapping pictures above in the same places.*

As ever, opinions differ on this. A few pro goalies – chiefly Henrik Lundqvist and Tyler Moss – have had gloves made that absolutely maximise the diameter of the glove. This used to be done by building the glove without a break, with a solid piece of slightly funneled plastic from thumb to fingers; this in effect made the glove a frying-pan with a pocket a one end, and required it to be used like a lacrosse-head to catch the puck. (Bauer has since made Lundqvist a glove that will open as wide as he wants and still have a working break.) A wide glove does indeed maximise spatial coverage. It also, however, makes it harder to catch; even with a break, a wider glove takes longer to close, especially in the upper-mid palm, where the width is largest and the glove (when closed) relatively shallow. A narrower glove like the Messiah is much easier to catch with. You can hit the Messiah with a flat puck anywhere from about 2” up from the heel all the way to the tip of the trap, and it will catch it: this is a glove that almost mechanically eliminates pop-outs. The key word there is ‘flat’: a flipping puck, or one that simply doesn’t enter the glove within a certain angular range, will be much harder to control – it may in fact clip the thumb or fingers. This isn’t technically a pop-out, since it never enters the glove, but it’s certainly not a controlled catch.

The relative narrowness of the glove’s opening (combined with the relatively neutral pitch of the Tee) also means that there is a small gap between the Tee and the ice when covering the puck:

Notice how the glove is propped up by the curve of the thumb on one side, and the fingers on the other. If the glove is simply tilted forward to seal the Tee to the ice, the heel of the palm (next to the cuff) would open up – and that is much worse, since an opposing player could whack the glove and slide the puck right out the back. The gap between the tip of the Tee and the surface can only be closed by pushing down hard on the palm (not pictured), which would widen the gap between the thumb and fingers and allow the Tee to lower to the ice (there’s that narrowness again); that would, however, also put a great deal of pressure on the thumb and fingers against the ice, and in particular, against the two or three loops of 3mm cord lacing the perimeter of the glove that are in direct contact with the surface on each side of the glove. This cord is almost invariably the first thing to wear on a glove, and while it is easy and cheap to replace, it will certainly wear faster when the glove is pressed hard into the ice, as the Messiah must be to get a complete seal.

This is not, frankly, that big a deal. Some goalies get hysterical if their glove doesn’t form an absolutely hermetic seal with the ice; I’d rather have a comfortable glove with which I can catch reliably. The height of the gap between the tip of the Messiah’s Tee and the surface is about ¾” – not enough for a puck to slip through, but enough to slow down the process of getting a seal. As it can be a dealbreaker for some, I thought it bore mention. It also helps to better illustrate the narrowness of the opening across the glove.

Ultimately, this is another simple design trade-off. The Messiah glove will catch anything it gets within its relatively small opening: it’s up to the goalie to use it precisely, and this comes at the price of some blocking area. A very wide glove, conversely, has greater blocking area, so it’s easier to get your glove on the puck, but requires much, much sharper timing on the closure of the glove precisely because it’s so wide open. I’ve always preferred a wide-open glove, partly because my catching skills are well developed from years of baseball and India-rubber balls. That said, the Messiah is by far the nicest narrow, Quebecois-style glove I’ve put on. It just feels like it’ll work, for lack of a better description. Warrior has also, I speculate, made an intelligent decision in designing the glove this way, since many goalies coaches have observed that catching – as a cross-discipline, multi-sport activity – is generally much weaker in goalies now than in previous generations, and the Messiah seems poised well to respond to this.

BOOK III: THE BLOCKER

The Argument: the Messiah blocker, unlike the glove, remains largely unchanged since its prototype. The reason is plain: it’s superb, and quite innovative, though very specifically designed for paddle-down and passive butterfly play.

While many claim that blockers are blockers sure as eggs is eggs, I’m fairly picky. I’ve owned far more blockers than catching gloves, and while I admit that differences between gloves are typically more obvious, the subtlety of differences between blockers is something that has always interested me.

The first thing I noticed about the blocker was that it’s tight as a drum: the whole thing is beautifully put together. The board is hard, stiff, and lively – rebounds fairly jump off it, with little or no loss of energy. It’s also an extremely responsive blocker in another sense: a slight flexion of the wrist makes the board roll sharply to the lateral side of the forearm. The roll isn’t dependent on a loose fit or strapping, but is built right in; that’s just how it rolls. This makes for a blocker that will flick pucks to the back glass hard, fast and consistently – which is ideal, since there is scarcely ever a reason to want soft rebounds off a blocker.

The other reason for the tight look and extremely lively rebound play of the blocker is the total absence of open-cell ‘crowning’ or headliner material in face of the blocker. I will get into this more in my section on the pads; for now, let it suffice to say that this is a decision that adds a little extra performance and attractiveness, and does much to emphasise the quality of Warrior’s craftsmanship: this is not easy to do.

There are two straps across the wrist: one to hold the wrist securely inside the palm, and the other to hold the sidewall in place. A two-strap setup allows obviously, these to be adjusted independently, which in turn allows the glove to fit a wider variety of hands and preferences. I like a blocker with a solid, secure feel; others don’t, and want it floppy; the Messiah can do both very well.

The Messiah’s sidewall has a thick, removable low-density foam pad (pictured above, left side) that gives the hand a feeling of positive support in the stance, when making unorthodox, Hasek-esque saves without the stick, and in shooting the puck.

The finger protection is absolutely stellar – maybe the best I’ve ever seen. The forefinger and pinky are boxed in with floating plates of high-density foam in tightly-sewn pockets attached with elastic straps for a little give when gripping the stick. All the fingers are protected from the front by an unique setup of two floating HD plates of varying length set at an angle to one another. Together, they ensure that the tips of the fingers are protected from almost any angle.

3rd photo courtesy of thegoaliecrease.net

A major part of the feel of this blocker is its articulated thumb. Most blockers – in fact, every one I can think of) rely on

This exceptional degree of finger protection is especially important in the Messiah blocker because it has clearly been designed to be the best paddle-down blocker on the market – and it’s my belief that Warrior has succeeded. The Messiah just lives to play paddle-down, a perfect blend of performance and protection in this tricky position:

My hand isn’t even inside the glove in these pictures: that’s how well-balanced it is in this position. The 3rd pictures really shows how the board has been beveled, as well as the curve of the face.

In making an ideal paddle-down blocker, Warrior has made one necessary and rather large compromise. The relatively low hand position on the board means that the goalie’s effective reach with the blocker is cut back. There’s simply no way around this: the closer the palm to the toe of the blocker, the shorter the reach; the closer to the top, the further the board extends past the hand and the greater the commensurate reach.

There are a couple of reasons why such a small difference is important to observe. First, intelligent shooters have known for years now that modern butterfly goaltending present a weak-spot – call it the Achilles, for epic effect – around 12”-16” off the ice to the blocker side, within about 4” of the post: just above the pad, but too low to get good extension of the blocker down the leg with the hip rotated under the shoulder. As a result, an extra inch of effective reach – that is, putting the palm an inch higher on the blocker – can make the difference between picking a few of these off, and getting popped here routinely. This is, I admit, more of a problem in pickup games and shootouts, where shooters have almost unlimited time and space; it’s a hard spot to hit on the fly in a properly defended game situation. When a guy hits that spot, however, the red light’s on unless you’ve got the reach and a perfect read.

Second, putting the hand lower on the board requires that the blocker hand be closer to the ice in the butterfly. This is most important in a passive butterfly – that is, with the blocker wedged firmly against the top of the pad (and the side of the pants). This isn’t a question of spatial coverage – you’re still covering a 15x7 rectangle – but of the position of the hand itself behind the blocker board. The lower the hand, the lower the angle of the paddle to the ice, and therefore the greater the opposite angle of the stick-blade to the ice (and, of course, the further the stick-blade from the pads in the butterfly).

This pushes me into a brief digression about stick-position in the butterfly. There are really two coherent schools of thought. There are, I admit, three ‘claimed’ schools of thought, but only two of these are really meaningful. Most coaches consistently teach (and the vast majority of NHL goalie consistently use) a stick-blade angle roughly equivalent to a 3-iron, with the stick-blade relatively close to the feet in the stance and the knees in the butterfly. A 3-iron stick is all that is needed to add enough elevation to put a 60+mph shot along the ice up to the corner glass, which is where it should always go. A small number of coaches teach a 9-iron stick position, on the theory that this can allow a goalie to reliably ramp pucks into his gut. This has been routinely shot down by professional coaches with video evidence; no substantial evidence in favour of a 9-iron stick has ever been offered. This means that a 9-iron stick can more or less be rolled in with the stick-position taught by the Quebecois ‘Allaire school’ – that is, to totally disregard the effective use of the stick in a passive butterfly, and to extend that rationale to almost all other situations. Practitioners of this approach rely on the medial protection of the pads (knee-wing and knee-blocks) and knee-pads to close the five-hole along and near the ice, rather than the stick, which may be off to the side or, more often, levered up into the air on the edge of the pad. Again, putting the hand-position lower on the blocker makes that levering of stick on pad more likely.

Ultimately, this comes down once again to personal preference – or rather, what I would call informed personal preference (IPP), which I imagine as standard PP without the implication of irrationality. I almost never use the paddle-down, except against wraparounds and obvious jam-plays; some guys use it a lot more. Some guys – think Giguere – don’t care what their stick is doing in a passive butterfly. It could be flapping around their ears for all they care, as long as their knee protection seals the five-hole; I like to maintain as active a stick and hands as possible, keeping the stick as close to a 3-iron angle as possible, always dead centre in the five-hole until I have a reason to move it. The Messiah blocker does not force a goalie to abandon an active stick, at least in the way that the glove more or less insists on a ‘handshake’ position.

The palm itself is one of the more interesting points of the blocker. This is not surprising, given Warrior’s expertise in building player gloves. The fit is considerably looser than most other goalie palms on the market: the finger-stalls are wider and longer, as is the body of the palm. When you consider that most goalie companies have one set of retail senior-sized palm dies across all their lines, even if they offer a couple of different materials, it’s an interesting decision. I have reasonably but by no means abnormally large hands, and although I enjoy a snug fit in a blocker palm, the Messiah palm felt lovely. It’s really no more than difference between a ‘snug’ 14” player glove and a ‘loose’ 14” glove, but to goalies, it’s an unusual difference that I’m sure will be much appreciated by the meaty-handed among us. Some goalies have complained bitterly about the feel of the palm in their very brief in-store ‘reviews’ (which are really just quick first impressions) but to my mind, it’s simply a matter of preference: don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, or until you’ve had hands big enough to be cramped by a Vaughn palm.

The construction of the palm is its most striking aspect, and is one of the most labour-intensive areas of the set. Rather than building a traditional single-layer palm, then layering a large reinforcing patch over it in obvious places where the friction is highest, and putting some foam in the palm to handle vibrations, Warrior appears to have redesigned the palm completely. I’ve never seen one like it:

This is without doubt the most labour-intensive palm design I’ve seen: a great deal of work went into thinking this through and putting it together. It looks as though certain areas are unprotected (chiefly the exposed mesh on the thumb), but when you actually get a stick in your hands, the grey overlays fold together around the stick and leave nothing exposed. It’s a bit like a soft suit of armor, with all the chinks folding into one another in action. In terms of feel, this is one of the nicest palms I’ve ever had.

Given how radical the design is, there’s a chance that it might wear prematurely, but it certainly seems to have been carefully put together for just the opposite.

Apart from my minor (and as yet totally speculative) concerns about the durability of the blocker palm, there is one small but glaring problem with the Messiah blocker. A very sensitive part of the hand has been left completely unprotected. If you look at the blocker from the lateral aspect, the entire outside of the hand (that is, below the pinky finger) is covered only by a thin strip of synthetic leather and some AirKnit mesh:

This might seem like a needless area to protect, but the bones of the hand are extremely delicate here, and a contusion can temporarily cripple grip strength. Most blockers offer at least a ¼” strip of high-density foam here. I’ve been stung on that side of the hand more than once by bad-angle (that is, low-angle) shots when the shooter got near the goal-line and decided just to fire it on net and hope for a bounce, and a few more times by inadvertent (and not so inadvertent) slashes when covering the puck with my blocker hand. Rather than risk it, I just cut a little strip of ½” HD foam and shoved it down between the mesh of the palm’s side and the grey Nash. Still, it’s an odd oversight on a blocker that is otherwise quite shrewdly designed.

BOOK IV: THE PADS

The Argument: on the surface, an interesting and impressive hybrid of new and old designs, but ultimately a very stiff, responsive pad on the leg, especially from the shin up, perhaps best suited to wider butterflies with separated knees.

The pair I received was a stock 34+2. They fit just a little smaller than the 34+2 Reebok Revokes I tried at the MSH Summer Jam in Toronto, by which I mean that my knee generally sat about ½” higher on the knee-block in both stance and butterfly; not a big deal, in my case, but something worth noting for others. Were I ordering them custom, I would probably have gone for a 34.5+2.5 or +3.

The use of dye-sublimated polyester in the pad is superb. I like it in the pad face; I absolutely love it on the lateral gusset. That’s not to say I’m madly in love with Warrior’s branding, but that the idea of a dye-sub gusset is sheer genius. Most pads, even today, use big die-cut letters sewn onto the lateral gusset; even in the best cases, this is pretty crude branding. Dye-sub is the way of the future on this part of the pad. Imagine, for example, the ability of an NHL goalie to have his mask artist design the outside of his pads – incorporating Warrior branding generously, of course. The possibilities are almost limitless, both for branding and personal expression.

As mentioned with the blocker, there appears to be a total absence of ‘crowning’ or open-cell headliner material in the face of the pad, and little to none elsewhere. Headliner is used by most goaltending companies as a spacer between the foam core of the pad and the skin around it – Reebok pads in particular use a ton of it. The effect is to stretch the synthetic leather face of the pad a little tighter over the core, giving it a look of fullness that goalies (and consumers in general) usually associate with quality.’ This generally pleasing cosmetic effect comes at the price of some added weight, and a small but not insignificant amount of energy lost on rebounds. Warrior has opted not to use this construction shortcut, and as a result, the Messiah is a relatively light pad and can really boot the puck away. This is just one of the many ways the pads show off the extremely high level of craftsmanship involved in their construction: it’s really tough to make a pad that looks this well put-together without using piles of headliner.

There are other similar nice touches, like the fact that many of the high-stress points where the stays (3mm laces that hold the pad’s shell to the foam core) pass through the nylon back of the pad have been reinforced with Jenpro:

The most important functional aspect of any modern pad is the medial surface: those parts of the pad that face the ice in the butterfly, and sit on the inside of the leg in the stance. There are two reasons for this: (1) that movement in the butterfly is one of the most valuable tools a goalie can have, even though it is grossly overused and over-instructed; and (2) that this aspect of the pad, no matter how the pad is used, is the one most subject to wear and tear, especially from the medial corner of the toe along the edge of the boot closest to the ice in the stance. Here, again, Warrior has made some very intelligent choices, and some questionable ones.

The Messiah pads features what may be best described as a compound medial gusset: partly round (at the boot), like Lefebvre’s Koho/Reebok designs and many older pads, and largely flat through the shin, as with most modern ‘box pads’ built around planks of foam, returning to a round medial roll through the knee and thigh as the pad thins out toward the top. This requires some tricky leather work and sewing through the ankle to bridge the two shapes, which Warrior pulled off rather nicely:

This is more or less the best of both worlds: the smooth, friction-free transition of a round medial roll at the boot, and the butterfly stability of a flat medial gusset through the shin. However, unlike many flat-gusseted pads, Warrior went one step further and rounded off the corners of the medial roll’s foam, giving it a pill-shaped profile. I cannot stress what a smart idea this is. A perfectly square piece of HD foam will inevitably slice through the Jenpro skin of the pad at the corners with friction over time; by beveling the corners, Warrior has added considerably to their labour and greatly increased the life of the pad. This shape also slides much better generally, since there’s less resistance at the edges.

You’ll note, however, that Warrior did leave the medial binding exposed along the ankle and the boot (as seen in the previous picture), between the bottom of the calf-wing and the Jenpro binding strip that runs around the toe of the pad. This is, generally speaking, one of the areas of the pad that can wear fastest. The nylon material used as binding on the Messiah and most other pads is a fairly thin, insubstantial polyester that wears through very quickly: it simply can’t take rubbing on the ice. This is a tricky area of the pad. Extending the heavier Jenpro binding up from the toe isn’t as easy as it looks, and using a concealed seam on the boot-flap and lower calf-flap (which Warrior has covered in Jenpro) isn’t possible because of the curve of the ankle.

The Messiah’s knee-wing (arguably the focal point of modern butterfly pad design) is similarly well done: a thin stiff HD foam core, pilled at the edges and wrapped in Jenpro, lacking entirely the polyester binding that is always the first thing to shred on other pads:

Strangely, Warrior did not carry this very sensible knee-wing construction through to the calf-wing, as may be seen partially above. The calf-wing has a Jenpro surface facing the ice, but Cordura around the sides, just like Lefebvre’s Kohos and Reeboks. This is a very small decision with two minor implications and one minor but unpleasant consequence. Bridging from Jenpro to Cordura at the corner of the calf-wing creates a four-layer corner (one layer of each material, sewn and folded over, giving two of each for four) that sits under the edge of the high-density foam in calf-wing. This means that, in effect, the edges of the calf-wing are just a tiny bit raised off the surface, which means in turn that they’re going to be exposed more snow and friction than any other part of the calf. And because half of that is Cordura, just like the Reeboks, they’re going to stick to every flake they encounter, and, more than likely, wear through quite quickly, especially on the bottom edge of the calf-wing. (More on this area of the pad later on.) Cordura is very, very tough and abrasion resistant, but it’s also far higher friction than most polyurethane-based synthetic leathers.

The knee-block (which sits on top of the knee-wing, and is sometimes referred to as a knee-lift, or, when composed of multiple layers of individually-wrapped foam, a knee-stack), is a clever design with a couple of drawbacks. The first thing I noticed is that Warrior has come up with a way to hold the knee-block much more securely to the pad than traditional lace-in designs, an at the same time, even easier to remove and replace. While most knee-blocks use velcro to keep them secure relative to the knee-wing and knee-cradle, Warrior’s design is quite ingenious in its use of velcro:

Velcro tabs on the back of the pad hold the sides of the block at right-angles to the pad; the ‘arms’ (for lack of a better word) from the knee-wing then wrap around the block and secure it laterally. This is, simply put, the most inherently stable knee-block I’ve ever seen on a 2010 NHL-spec pad (now that straps through the knee-block have been outlawed). The sole drawback (restricted to those of us who like to mod our gear) is that in order to move the knee up or down, you’d have to open the entire pad up and move the velcro tabs on the back of the pad – not a concern for most goalies.

In keeping with the ease of swapping out the knee-block, Warrior has two basic options: a ‘Soft’ knee-block using relatively soft low-density (LD) foam and covered in Cordura nylon, and a ‘Hard’ knee-block of stiffer foams wrapped in Jenpro synthetic leather. My demo pads came with the default retail ‘Soft’ knee-block; I would likely have ordered the ‘Hard’ block myself, partly because I’m used to a stiffer knee-block from Reeboks pads, and partly because the use of Jenpro instead of Cordura. Because the knee-block extends 1.5” beyond the length of the knee-wing (in accordance with NHL specs), this area of the knee-block can be exposed to the ice in butterfly slides or other less orthodox save movements. I always prefer to have Jenpro in areas that might touch the ice, because it slides better and wears better on the ice than Cordura, as noted above. It’s a small detail – and one Warrior is aware of, given the construction of the ‘Hard’ knee-block – but one to keep an eye on.

...CONTINUED IN PART 2...

…PART 2 (CONTINUED)…

The leg-channel on the Messiah is one of the highlights:

The combination of foams and materials is simply lovely on the leg, supporting the calf without being any hindrance whatsoever to rotation (which is the main reason why some people claim to dislike a ‘busy’ or ‘cluttered’ or ‘closed’ leg-channel). Warrior also did a very smart thing in allowing two elastic velcro straps, one each at the top and bottom of the calf. These are not necessary, since the leg will be held in place by the leather shin-straps, but can add significantly to the responsiveness of the pad and the comfort factor. My only further suggestion would have been to make the entire outside of the leg-channel loop velcro, rather than just a couple of strips, to allow for unorthodox strap placements. They did this on the underside of the knee-lock, but not on the top-half of the knee-lock or on the calf:

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r28/Law_Goalie/Warrior%20Messiah%20MSH%20Review/WM-LGrev86.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r28/Law_Goalie/Warrior%20Messiah%20MSH%20Review/WM-LGrev87.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r28/Law_Goalie/Warrior%20Messiah%20MSH%20Review/WM-LGrev88.jpg

Best of all, for those who simply don’t like a built-up leg-channel, Warrior has made the entire thing removable. The leg-channel is laced into the pad along two punched Jenpro tabs that run the length of the shin:

Simply undo two knots, pull out the lace, and you have a wide-open leg-channel. The calf-wrap (which sits between the calf-wing and the leg-channel) is nylon on the inner side, and velcroes to the calf-wing on the other, so it provides a very stable platform for the leg in the absence of the leg-channel. This is a very well thought out piece of end-user customisation.

One of the things I didn’t love about the pads was the strap system (apart from the elastic leg-channel velcro straps). While Warrior has made some effort to allow the user to customise strap-placement, it’s surprisingly limited – especially given the clever design of the leg-channel. The only options available allow the movement of the top two straps (nylon quick-release straps on stock pads, as on my demos) between four webbing loop attachment points along the lateral side (outside) of the knee, between the breaks, using standard one-sided Slik-Clips:

However, the nylon straps are sewn into the pad’s binding on the medial side. This means not only that you can’t remove the straps, but that you can only adjust their angle relative to a fixed point. No adjustments at all are available with any of the straps below the knee, which are all leather and all sewn into the bindings. In short, this means that while the end user has some ability to control the angle of the straps at the knee (the most important area of the pad, I’d argue), there is no ability to change the position of straps, or remove or replace them, without ripping the seam between the bindings wide open.

The leather straps themselves are also something of a concern. The top two (in the shin) are pretty standard placements on the calf-wing, holding it securely in place – although they are placed slightly more toward the centre of the wing than is common. The next down, at the ankle, is a bit of an oddity:

This is something I haven’t seen I years: a strap exposed to the ice on the medial side of the pad. More to the point, Warrior seems to be aware that this area (where the calf-wrap extends below the calf-wing) can be a magnet for snow and ice buildup and premature wear, since they’ve gone to the trouble and expense of sewing a large Jenpro patch over the exposed area of the calf-wrap. Why they then decided to make the strap run outside the calf-wrap, thus defeating in large part the whole point of covering it with Jenpro, is beyond me. (I will admit that it does give the pad a slight throwback charm, and that an exposed strap here is less of a problem than at the knee, or higher up the calf, but it seems like a very odd decision from a cosmetic or a design standpoint.)

My other concern is with the leather of the straps. Warrior chose to use a very soft, supple strap leather on the Messiah pads. It feels great in the hand and lovely next to the leg, lacking the hard edges of traditional heavyweight strapping, and actually having a tiny bit of natural stretch and resiliency to it. The problem is that this softer leather, being a bit thinner and more pliable, is going to get absolutely mauler anywhere it comes in contact with the ice – and the Messiah’s exposed ankle-strap is a prime candidate. The boot-strap and the toe-bridge are also made of the same leather, and they’ll see almost as much (if not more) brutal wet scraping from the ice and the movement of the skate. I love this leather on the straps at the calf, but for the lower ones, which don’t touch skin (only skate), it might have been better to go with a heavier, more traditional leather for the straps and the toe-bridge.

Out of the box, the pads present a noticeable but gentle curve through the knee, but are extremely stiff both laterally and vertically – much stiffer overall, for example, than a stock Reebok/Lefebvre pad. This is in spite of the fact that, cosmetically, the Messiah pads have ‘large’ breaks above and below the knee (aka ‘Turco breaks’) in the vertical roll and in the face of the pad (ie. the knee-rolls):

The ankle-break is somewhat flexible (more than a Reebok pad, at least), allowing moderate flexibility between shin and boot. The knee and thigh-rise are another matter entirely: they are basically immovable.

One of the rules of thumb with respect to goalie pads is that if you like a very flexible thigh-rise (and I do), you should be able to flex the top of the pad significantly simply by pushing down on it with two fingers. Two-finger pressure doesn’t budge the Messiah. Pressing down hard with the heel of my hand only squashed the boot-break down; the top of the pad wouldn’t give an inch. I finally grabbed the pad just below the knee with my other hand and really forced it down against itself; finally, it moved. This wasn’t a question of my strength, but of the pad’s relatively stiffness. While a goalie with exceptionally strong hamstrings and an exceptionally tight top strap might be able to bend these pads while dropping their hips in the butterfly, there is absolutely no way any goalie could possibly do this in transition from stance to an upright ‘active’ butterfly.

It is important for me to observe here that this is not necessarily a design flaw per se. Many pads these days do have rigid upper structures in their pads, and there is a growing number of goalies who do not rely on thigh-rise flexibility or curve: witness Antii Niemi, for one, whose pads are actually straight as boards and never flex.

The real problem is one in the market that Warrior is simply reflecting: pads that have the appearance of breaks above and below the knee but are in fact rigid (if slightly curved) plank foam. There are two possibilities: either people seem to want it, for whatever superficial reason, or most companies feel they need to market it. It seems to be little more than a marketplace reality.

Let me say this as clearly as possible: just because there are breaks in the vertical roll does not mean that there are breaks inside the pad, or vice versa. My Reeboks have no breaks in the vertical roll, and I can flex the thigh-rise down against the knee-block with only my ring-finger. (I had to re-cut the foam core to do that, but I didn’t do anything to the vertical roll foam.) The Warrior Messiah pads have hugely pronounced breaks in the vertical roll above and below the knee, and corresponding knee-rolls across the face of the pad, but are basically inflexible at either point.

I considered various torture treatments for the pads, mainly crushing them under a bench or taping/tying down the thigh-rise. The problem with extreme measures like this is that they’re basically destructive to the pad. In my case, I wasn’t about to put the screws to a pair of Warrior’s demo pads. Even if I owned them, I’d be extremely leery about putting them through that kind of abuse. What that kind of sustained pressure does is nothing short of fracturing, creasing, and crushing the internal foams, and deforming the shell of the pad: warping material, bursting seams, etc. If I want to make those kind of changes, I’d rather open the entire pad up, take the foam out, re-cut it, and re-sew certain areas of the shell – again, not things I’m about to do with a demo set. Nor would Warrior let me if I asked: this is a set that is supposed to be a meaningful demo of a retail set, not a set for my personal enjoyment or anyone else’s.

My personal preference, as stated above, is for a flexible thigh-rise. Despite having the best knee-pads money can by, I want the tops of my pads to cover my knees in all situations, and that requires the pads’ thigh-rises to be extremely flexible. The Messiah does not seem to offer this, even as a standard custom option: the only options appear to be various removals of the purely cosmetic breaks in the vertical roll. This is, as I’ve noted, disappointing for me but not for all goalies; I may very well be in the minority in this opinion. I am quite interested to see how (and whether) I can adapt my game to vertically rigid pads. It may not be a smooth transition, and may require some monkeying around, but I’ll give it a shot.

BOOK V: THE PANTS

The Argument: no Messiah is complete without girded loins; Warrior’s Messiah goalie pants are a remarkably flexible and lightweight design that complements the pads beautifully, but sacrifices a little protection around the hip.

Apart from the delicate balance of protection and mobility, the third job of any pair of goalie pants is to integrate well with the pads; in this case, because they are both part of the same set, there should be absolutely no interference in or out of the butterfly, in transition between those two stances, nor in any save movement.

Warrior has made a superbly flexible pair of goalie pants. They feature more elastic panels than I’ve ever seen – not only all around the crotch, but across the front and back of the hips as well. The front panels are especially important, since they allow flexibility in unorthodox movements; the goalie isn’t locked into a limited range of athleticism. Tailbone and lower back protection is excellent, but in no way a hindrance to movement. It’s just a great design all around from a mobility perspective.

2nd and 3rd photos above courtesy of The Goalie Crease.

Another very good decision was including sewn-in synthetic leather tabs, so that standalone knee-pads could be easily laced in. Given that Warrior doesn’t make knee-pads, this was a fairly savvy and considerate move on their part. (There was, as I mentioned, a set of NHL-regulation thigh-guards that could be attached to the pads, but I absolutely cannot stand those.)

My sole worry is that because the attachment point is static (ie. fixed), and the thigh-pads of the Messiah pants are relatively long, the knee-pads may not be ideally situated for all users. There isn’t really an elegant way around this except to use a retractable ‘Armadillo’ knee as on the Cooper/Bauer Reactor series pants (later also NBH/Bauer Vapor and One95), which I believe is still under patent. Even so, Warrior should be commended for adding this small piece if only because not every company does, and knee-pads attached to pants are much more comfortable for the non-professional goalie who can make use of them.

Speaking of attachment points, Warrior has come up with one of the most ingenious ways to attach a C/A (or chest-arm unit) to their Messiah pants that I’ve ever seen. Rather than leaving the goalie to tie the C/A’s belly loop into the laces at the front of the pants (which plays havoc with the fit of the lacing, and loosens up to allow the C/A to move too far), or to slip the belt of the pants through the loop (which allows the C/A to move sideways a great deal, twisting around the torso), Warrior has come up with a simple and effective way to attach the C/A to a single point on the belt:

Once the belt is at the desired tension, and the velcro opening is centred on the C/A’s loop (because, naturally, it doesn’t matter where the belt’s buckle may be), you just slip the loop over the velcro and close it around the loop: you now have a C/A that’s locked down to the pants and centred on your belly-button. It looks like it will work flawlessly.

The pants also appear to integrate extremely well with the pads. The Messiah pants are relatively long in the thigh, which is something that most goalie pants have gone away from, on the theory that a long pant is more likely to interfere with the pad in transition to the butterfly. While this is generally true – and was especially true in the days of oversized flat-face pants – Warrior has a rather elegant and well-crafted solution. Rather than making a short pant that sits on top of the pad (on the lateral gusset) in the butterfly, Warrior designed the shape of the Messiah pants to fit down inside the Messiah pads in stance and butterfly, and in transition between them. The curve across the face of the pants onto their lateral aspect matches exactly the curve of the pads around the knee:

This may seem an obvious design decision, but it’s the first time I’ve seen a goalie company get this right, and it looks damned effective. (Note: I wasn’t able to capture a good image of this, but trust me: it’s almost seamless integration in both stance and butterfly and all points in between – very impressive.)

My initial concern (and this is before I get them on the ice) is the lack of anterior (frontal) protection on the hips. This is an extremely tricky area to protect well. Sufficient padding almost invariably means restricted mobility; insufficient padding runs a risk of injury. Some of this area is covered by the larger modern goalie jocks with broad abdominal shields attached, but these, too, restrict mobility, and even the largest don’t cover the full area.

That very thin navy binding at the edge of the upturned yellow material: that is the total thickness of foam.

The Messiah pants have only a 1/8” layer of low-density foam over much of the hip. This, of course, allow great range of movement, but minimal protection. The anterior hip area is not exposed all the time. As observed, the Messiah pants have relatively long (that is, tall) thigh pads; as the goalie crouches, and the abdomen approaches the knees, the thigh-pads slide up to the hip joint and cover the exposed area. In the stance, this is all well and good; in an upright butterfly, however, the hips remain entirely exposed to frontal impacts. This is even more of a concern given the frequency with which modern goalies now use an upright ‘passive’ butterfly in response to a screen shot. This requires the hips to be extended as far as possible to allow the shoulders to cover the aerial angle from the knees up; it also requires the gloves to drop to the sides of the thighs, which expands the blocking area presented to the puck but removes the ability of the goalie’s hands to protect the core. With the Messiah pants, an upright passive butterfly leaves the hips exposed to the puck with little protection.

Conversely, there is a surprising excess of padding on the medial (inside) surface of the thighs – 1.5” thick on each leg, for 3” total between the thighs. Even more surprising is that Warrior has made this padding non-removable. The high-density foam strips on the lateral (outside) of the leg can be removed; even the main thigh-pads themselves are in a velcro pocket; but the medial padding is sewn in and sewn closed. There’s no way to modify it without ripping and re-sewing seams, and I’m certainly not about to do that to part of their demo fleet.

Photo by ‘Goaliemedic’ from GSBB: see his review here.

What effect this glut of padding on the inside of the thigh will have on the ice, I won’t speculate. I will, however, observe that I haven’t been hit on the inside of the thigh since I started playing again five years ago – only in the front – and I cut all the medial padding out of my Bauer Reactor pants within a week for getting them after inspecting a pair of pro-return CCM’s. Padding on the inside of the thigh seems both unnecessary and very likely to compromise movement. Now, there are other reasons to have padding there – supporting a very wide butterfly, for one – but the real problem, for me, is that Warrior didn’t make this particular padding optional. It would have been easy, I imagine, to give these pockets velcro closures, or to make them removable entirely.

BOOK VI: THE CHARIOT

The Argument: the author’s MSH Long-Term Review of the Warrior Messiah Wheeled Goalie Bag may be found here. [LINKED]

BOOKS VII-X: UNKNOWN

No record has been published of any further Warrior Messiah goalie equipment – for now.

BOOK XI: THE BATTLE ON THE ICE (with further Apologies to Eisenstein and Prokofiev)

The Argument: the overall performance of the set, while not a revelation of Messianic proportions, was at the very least a minor miracle or an experience of the divine.

At first, I found catching with the glove to be relatively challenging – lots of tips and clips and mishandled shots – but I would put this down to the difficulties I experienced with a handshake glove position, rather than the glove itself. When I used it properly, it caught pucks with aplomb, and it was supremely good for trapping against the body. The more I adapted my game to the glove, the better it performed. While it may not be my cup of tea, it is an excellent version of this type of glove, and well worth the attention of anyone who likes the Lefebvre/Reebok designs from Koho up through the Premier 2 and Revoke Pro. This is a glove that just feels wonderfully natural on the hand, and if it suits your style, you’ll love it.

In spite of the ‘game-ready’ palm, which required absolutely no break-in, the glove was superbly protective. Generally speaking, if a goalie glove is ready to go out of the box, it’s not going to be as protective as one that needs break-in – that, anyway, is the conventional wisdom. As I mentioned in my initial impressions, there is something about the way Warrior has designed and constructed the hinges in the break of this glove that leave absolutely no weak points or gaps in coverage, but offer almost no resistance to closing the glove. It’s a wonderful piece of work.

Puckhandling was likewise superb. The shape of the Tee and the heel of the glove made gripping the stick easy, whether in the traditional grip or the ‘Turco’ overhand grip. I did find it slightly difficult to get maximum power and height on long clears, mostly because of the angle of my wrist into the cuff; but that is more about me than the glove. It’s a very well-designed puck-handling mitt.

The blocker, again, took some adjustment on my part. Because I seldom use the paddle-down, many of its carefully designed advantages didn’t come into play for me. I did, however, attempt to work it in as much as I could, and found that the Messiah blocker made paddle-down play significantly easier. I never felt like I was fighting the blocker board for the right position and balance on the ice: for an unnatural position and an unusual one for me, it suddenly felt quite comfortable. While paddle-down butterfly slides to a blocker-side wrap-around are an occasional part of my game, the Messiah blocker made them and the far more awkward glove-side paddle-down wrap far, far more comfortable to execute. In spite of all this extra paddle-down play, I never once managed to even come close to banging my fingers or thumb on the ice, as I’d feared. Nor did I ever take a shot to the side of the hand. That’s not to say my concerns were unfounded, only that they didn’t manifest in the course of the review; they’re not probabilities, merely unpleasant possibilities.

The Messiah pads were somewhat more problematic, though the vast majority of their performance was superb.

Rebounds off the shin and boot were booted clear out to the blueline (on Olympic ice!) when I wanted them gone; when a softer touch was called for, the pads were responsive enough (thanks largely to the superb leg-channel) to allow me to absorb the force, keep the rebound within a foot and smother it. For such a built-up leg-channel, the pads didn’t feel restrictive at all. They were, in fact, extremely comfortable. This is definitely saying something, since my benchmark set of Reebok PS2’s are built around Lefebvre’s classic wide-open leg-channel, and they’ve been terrific for me. That Warrior could make a pad so different feel so good on the leg is a real achievement – and they had the good sense to make the bulk of the leg-channel removable with two rows of lacing, just in case.

The only place where my comfort was anything less than optimal was in the knee-block, and even this can easily be customized. I prefer a relatively stiff one-piece knee-block: I’ve been using Reebok ones on my last several sets of pads. Warrior, like most companies these days, has gone with a one-piece block, but their stock knee-block is much, much softer than Reebok’s. Warrior does offer a harder knee-block as a custom option, and has designed the knee area so cleverly that the blocks could be switched in seconds, being held in with a smart Velcro setup rather than the traditional 3mm cord. Warrior also offers a firmer synthetic leather and nylon knee-cradle to go with the harder knee-block, as opposed to the softer stock cradle which is faced with grey Nash.

Butterfly movement was excellent all around. The round medial roll along the boot did a superb job of managing the transition from stance to butterfly and back, and the partially flattened roll from the shin up provided a stable platform while down: best of both worlds. As a result, butterfly slides were very smooth and precise. Even with a much softer knee-block than I’m used to (and frankly, given my size and leg strength, much softer than I should be using at all), lateral transitions from the stance, where much of the bodyweight ends up slamming into the ice on one knee, were solid. There was some considerable snow build-up on the exposed Cordura of the knee-block (which extends about 1.5” beyond the knee-wing), indicating a possible source of premature wear, but I would attribute this to the softer knee-block deforming under my weight than any design flaw. (For more on medial snow build-up and wear, see below.)

Again, a good deal of personal preference came into play. My butterfly is relatively narrow, with my knees tight together; this means I have to rely on a pad with a very flexible thigh-rise, which bends over my knees and five-hole every time I drop, or a very heavily pre-curved pad. Even if the Messiah’s top strap-tabs had been higher, I still would have found it largely impossible to bend the thigh-rises of the pads closed, and I am by no means a small guy or deficient in the hamstrings. I ended up simply removing the upper female buckles (via the Slik-clips), slipping off the male buckle and tri-glide from the strap, and tucking the bare nylon strap down the leg-channel. This leaves no attachment-point above the bottom of the knee-block, and it’s how I’ve worn pads that were rigid above the knee in the past (Koho 590s, Reebok Revoke Pros at the MSH skate, a buddy’s Niemi-esque TPS R8’s for fun). This did mean, however, that because the curve of the pad around the knee is relatively shallow, and the pads were so stiff and resistant to pre-skate bending (aka ‘S-curving’), my five-hole was often exposed in transition to the butterfly, and even when settled in it. Basically, I found it more or less impossible to stop shots in front my knees with the thigh-rises of the Messiah pads: anything above the stick, or deflected around the stick, was going through.

My problem was compounded by Messiah pants because of the relative thickness (1.5”) of the inner thigh padding I mentioned earlier. This effectively forced my knees 3” apart, creating a nicely puck-sized gap right between them. As a result, I let in more five-hole goals in one session with the Messiah pads and pants than I had in a month of play previous. I also found that because of the way the thighs of the pads stuck out, they very often interfered with my preferred 3-iron stick position. The top of the left pad would frequently land on top of the stick-blade, and the right pad would often push the paddle aside. I tried to adopt Allaire-style stick abandon, but found it so totally alien to my game that it became more or less impossible, and it also removed the last obstacle for any low shot to the five-hole.

I tried to isolate the problem by trying the Messiah pads with my venerable Bauer Reactor 6 pants, and the Messiah pants with my PS2 pads. Because my Bauer pants allow me to get my knees tight together in the butterfly, this largely solved the issue of five-hole goals. There were still, unfortunately, a few that snuck through, and more than a few that went past the thigh-rises and stuck my knee-protection directly. Bauer’s Reactor design has a telescoping thigh-pad, and I replaced the stock knee-pads attached to it with John Brown’s, which are as close to bulletproof as possible. That said, these are backup measures to my mind: I’d always rather stop a shot with the thighs of the pads. Without resorting to extreme measures to permanently curve the Messiah pads above the knee, like jamming the pads under a bench or tying them down (not things I’m willing to do with a demo set), I experienced more puck impacts to my knees than I’ve had in ages.

Now, lest it seem like I’m blaming the pads and pants like the apocryphal carpenter and his tools, I am not. There are plenty of goalies whose butterfly play would very much agree with the Messiah pants and pads: those with relatively wide ankle-flare who separate their knees for extra coverage. To them, the Messiah design is ideal precisely because the pants help to support their knees a few inches apart, and the pads don’t bend inward as the hamstrings move through the vertical toward a kneeling squat (aka a gut-trap). Provided your ankles can flare the pads out far enough, you’d never notice the stick interference I did, and you’d never get a single puck to the knees.

I should further observe that the Messiah pads and pants integrated perfectly, and behaved exactly as they should have. That I personally don’t like the way they’re designed tells you as much about me as it does about the equipment. No company can possibly make one set of gear to satisfy everyone’s tastes, and this set should, in my opinion, satisfy more than most – just not mine. Additionally, Warrior’s solution to the problem of universal pants-to-C/A attachment was stunningly effective. The velcro works: nothing more needs to be said, and it should be admired by all.

There were, however, a few notable durability issues with the Messiah set. I broke the Slik-clips holding both female knee-buckles to the pad in the first hour of use. I admit I’m quite hard on my pads, and I like a tight knee-block strap to hold it at 90-degrees to the pad face, but debilitating breakage that fast is simply not good. Going with Slik-clips on this side of the pad, where the greatest force is exerted on the straps during butterfly movements, was probably not the best idea. I also noticed, as I feared, tremendous snow and ice build-up on the exposed straps and Cordura nylon areas on the medial side of the pad. The leather boot-strap in particular had already begun to curl and warp after the first icetime. The leather straps Warrior used are very soft and pleasant on the leg, but a more stout, traditional boot-strap might have been a better choice. While I’m sure the pad as a whole will hold up admirably over time, these areas may give users an inappropriately poor view of their durability.

These were taken seconds after heading to the bench at the end of a standard 50-minute skate; I didn’t even wait to get back in the room. (Please forgive the flash on that last picture: the shiny new white Jenpro on the bottom of the calf throws back a lot of light when wet.)

…PART 2 (CONTINUED)…

Sure, enough, when I surveyed the pads at the end of my review, there was evidence of considerable wear to the nylon and polyester areas exposed to the ice and to the straps:

I’ve never torn through a boot-strap, but this one looked like it was about to blow in two or three places: it was already down to about 50% of its original thickness in some spots, and extremely warped.

One other area where I noticed significant snow build-up (as previously observed) was along the trailing edge of the knee-block – a Cordura surface that extends 1.5” beyond the slick Jenpro knee-wing:

There was even some snow on the lower loop velcro of the knee-lock, suggesting (worryingly) that this too had been in contact with the ice.

This was troubling for two reasons: one, because this can be, naturally, a high-wear area of the pad in the modern game; two, because it explained one of the more unpleasant parts of my experience with the pads.

Every single time I used the Messiah pads on ice, I would smash one knee directly onto the ice, missing the knee-cradle entirely – usually the right, for some reason, and as per the above photos, there was always more snow on the right pad. Despite having the best kneepads on the market (Brown’s) attached to both the Messiah pants and my R6’s (when I subbed them in), this was leaving me hobbling off the ice with bruised and swollen knees. I’d never had this happen before – ever, with any pair of modern pads.

I eventually figured out when it was happening. It was very consistent. When I was driving down into a sliding butterfly from my stance (especially on a backwards diagonal), my frontside (lead) knee, which hits the ice first, was flying out of the knee-cradle and smashing into the ice. The why soon followed: the pad was sticking to the ice at the knee, and my knee was leaving it behind in the lateral movement. It wasn’t hard to identify the trailing edge of the knee-block as the culprit: it was invariably caked with a thick, sticky layer of snow after the first ten minutes on the ice. (The problem had absolutely nothing to do with my removal of the top strap, which would have in no way prevented this movement.)

Now, I should make it perfectly clear that a large part of this issue is, once again, due to these demo pads having the stock ‘Soft’ knee-cradle and knee-block, when what I really needed (and would have had, if I had bought the pads myself), was the optional ‘Hard’ knee setup. The reason that the trailing edge of the knee-block was in contact with the ice at all was simply because my weight was squashing it down and bending it over the hard edge of the knee-wing. A lighter goalie (as I guesstimated, sub-180lbs) would experience none of this; a larger goalie with the optional ‘Hard’ knee wouldn’t either. Warrior has already identified and remedied this problem – I just turned out to be a good simulation of the wrong choice of knee, and, hopefully, something of a reference case for establishing a meaningful benchmark. (Then again, if we think of the knee-cradle and knee-block as shock-absorbers, the ‘Soft’ would be aimed at bigger guys and the ‘Hard’ at smaller ones, since they won’t need as much cushioning; once again, it’s all about informed personal preference.) It also didn’t help that the pads were, as I first observed, about half an inch small on me; that extra half inch might have taken a lot of the sting out of those impacts or eliminated them entirely, and I would have ordered them that way simply as a matter of course in correct sizing, or gone up a full inch to a 35+2 at retail.

There was one final concern regarding durability, which I only noticed as I was unlacing my Brown knee-pads from the Messiah pants. The black Jenpro tabs inside both legs had begun to rip off the pants under strain from the attached knee-pads:

This is the danger of having a fixed attachment point for knee-pads. If it’s too far down the leg (relative to the wearer), the knee-pads will feel sloppy and shift around; if it’s too high up the leg, driving the knees down hard in the butterfly will pull down equally hard on the pants – that is, on the two small tabs held in by a single row of stitching to a single layer of 400D nylon. Based on my initial fitting, I’d say my knees were in almost exactly the right spot relative to the knee-pads on the tabs, and I still nearly tore both of them clean off in a matter of a few dozen hours. Nor is this an easy home repair: you’d have to open up the pants pretty far to be able to invisibly stitch the tabs back on.

BOOK XII: CONCLUSIONS

The Argument: with the review behind him, and the blessing of the gear passed on to another, the Reviewer reflects on the things he now lacks, when a lack is always most keenly felt.

I miss the Messiah blocker. There’s no other way to say it. I’ve been back to alternating my Heaton/CCM Gatekeeper and my Brian’s A-Maxx, both of which I dearly loved, and they simply don’t hold up. I am not by nature a paddle-down goalie, and I in theory I prefer a higher hand-position on the blocker board for longer reach, but I simply wish I still had the Messiah holding my goalie stick for me. It feels a bit like phantom-limb syndrome – so used was I to that natural, agreeable feeling, I keep hoping it’ll be there.

While the pads and I had a less perfect relationship, there is one thing about them that I truly regret not having simply stolen from the set: the leg-channel.

I had a little twinge of kleptomaniacal regret when I mailed the set off; I thought to myself, “Self, that’s the most comfortable leg-channel you’ve ever used, and it’s just laced in… just unlace it, say you forgot to put it back in and lost it, and enjoy comfort forever.” It must be a sign of good, Nicomachean habits that this didn’t occur to me until after it was out of my hands and in the courier’s, but I miss it almost as much as the Messiah blocker. It was the only true close-fitting leg-channel I’ve found that was comfortable, no hindrance to rotation, and a great help in controlling the pad: ordinarily, if you get two of those things in a pad, you count yourself lucky, and to have all three is thought to be impossible. There are those who swear a closed leg-channel means lesser rotation than a wide-open, Lefebvre/Reebok channel; those are the very ones who should try the Messiah pads.

The people who were, on first sight, most impressed with the Messiah set as a whole were the kids I coach: from Tyke to Bantam, they loved the look, and they were full of questions. I even let a couple of the larger and more responsible ones take them for quick spins at the end of training. And on the theme of loss, one eight year-old lamented when I showed up with my usual set, “Where did your cool pads go?” Out of the mouths of babes…

This sort of incident leads me to think that a good deal of the criticism of Warrior’s goal line is doomed to jaded failure while the equipment goes on to great success: the reviewers go in bristling with preconceptions, already haughtily disposed to dislike the branding for whatever quasi-religious reason, and come away with every prejudice confirmed.

Try this set with open eyes, and you’ll know what it’s all about.

APPENDIX A: OBJECTIVE RATINGS REITERATED

Messiah Glove – 9/10 (A+)

Messiah Blocker – 9.75/10 (A+)

Messiah Pads – 8/10 (A-)

Messiah Pants – 8/10 (A-)

Messiah Wheel-Bag (interim rating) – 8.5/10 (A+)

Messiah Set – 8.25/10 (A)