Warrior Ritual Debriefing Thread

[Law Goalie 147]

Bumping this thread so it can become the venue for any questions related to my ongoing long-term review of the Warrior Rituals.

I'd also love to hear from Lemieux about his Ritual experiences at the MSH Summer Jam. I'll go nag him about it via PM.

[Lemieux 59]

It was an honor to be invited to MSH Summer Jam 2012 and a privilege to have the opportunity to demo this season's goalie equipment (the best goalie gear showing ever for MSH!), so a few thoughts about the Ritual gear seems to be in order (with a bit of nagging from Law Goalie! ). I played half a scrimmage in these pads (the rest of my time was in the Bauer Supreme TotalONE gear), so all I can offer are impressions - I didn't get to play around with them very much.

• Warrior Ritual pads sizing is different from other brands! Because of the pads' shallow/flat boot channel and the ankle-boot construction, the pad will sit high. Also, the thigh rise is tall. If possible, try a pair in person before ordering. It would probably be more useful to indicate how tall you want the thigh rise to extend above your knee than to blindly order +1, +1.5, or whatever. Over the past retail season, I've heard many excited goalies who've had to sell their pre-ordered Warrior pads because they ordered the wrong size.
  
• I like the Warrior Ritual pads' efficiency in design. Law Goalie has written a lot about this aspect already in his LTR, so I'll say that I like how a lot of the features are well thought out. It's a very functional pad that reduces clutter where it can.
  
• The pad is light. Well, compared to my old-spec (i.e. 12 inch) Eagle pads, anything is light. But I like the Warrior pads - I felt quick in them. OmegaGoalie said that I looked good in the pads. He noted that they sat tall on me and complemented my upright stance and play.
  
• I like the sliding toe bridge. It's a way to keep the pad secure to the skate while allowing movement at the ankle. My preference is to have a fairly loose attachment, so I would add a bit of slack at the toe tie. At the same time, I've never played with a sliding toe bridge, so maybe I could adjust to the tighter fit and control of a secured boot.
  
• I understand Smith's philosophy about pad rotation. His recipe for a flat boot, square toe, and sliding toe bridge makes sense to me because the reduced clutter allows the skate to engage with the ice quickly. The bindingless boot is a bonus in terms of looks and function. My future pad would probably incorporate all of those things, plus a boot that is sized according to my skate. What I mean is that I would want the toe of my skate to meet exactly where the sliding toe bridge starts to eliminate excess boot length (and perhaps add it to the top of my pad if I were in a league where pad sizing mattered!). A long boot could interfere with optimal pad rotation mechanics.
  
• I like having adjustable plastic and nylon clips. I changed the setting on the bench between turns to see how I'd like different configurations. Yeah, the plastic can break (and in fact, one clip did break during the scrimmage), but replacing them is easy. The leather tabs would be more durable, but the weight savings between leather and nylon clips can be significant. Weight vs. durability - that's a decision that a goalie would need to make.
  
• I learned that I prefer pads with a double break. My narrow butterfly was not helped by the straight setup of the demo pads - I always had a gaping hole when in the butterfly. Sure, proper stick placement would be best to cover up for that five hole for those who prefer the straight cut (think Jonas Hiller), but I'd like to secure that gap.
  
• Rebounds were lively off the face. This feature is in keeping with most flat-faced pads nowadays for goalies who like to kick/block pucks far away from the net. I prefer softer rebounds that fall close to me so I can cover them up (though that runs the risk of inviting a lot of crease crashing to find rebounds).
  
• I cannot comment properly on the butterfly sliding function of these pads. The demo pads were tall on me and I was not used to the straight thigh rise, so I couldn't really get the proper mechanics to move down low. The demo was a 34", but I feel like I should've been in a 32". (I don't know my knee-to-floor measurement.) For what it's worth, I haven't read any reviews where the goalies complained of worsened down-low play (except for those who weren't in the correct size).
  
• I didn't pay much attention to the blocker and catcher. (I don't even remember which models I had.) A blocker is a blocker to me, unless it's done poorly. I'll say that it was unremarkable - nothing great or bad about it. The catcher felt like it was made for much bigger hands than mine. I had to dig my hand deep into the finger stalls before I felt like I properly engaged the break. It was a nice break but hard to find.
  

I'd be happy to expand or comment on anything else. The Warrior Ritual pad is well-designed and functional. It is different so it requires an adjustment period, but I can see how they would play well. Warrior has a good design and production team who want to challenge how goalie equipment is done. Their new C/A is slated to rethink how to balance protection and mobility, and it will catch the attention of the industry. Looking forward to see what the coming season will bring for Warrior!

[Law Goalie 147]

Good points all, and thanks for chiming in! I'll shoot you an email in a bit.

When you say one of the plastic clips broke, do you mean one of the side-release buckles, or one of the Slik-clips that hold the buckles to the webbing loops? One of the neat things you can do with the Warrior leather buckles is unscrew the bolt, remove the metal clip, and slip a plastic one in there instead: works great, and adds a little protection for the plastic buckle and a little extra rigidity in the strapping. (Pics to come...)

For the record, the stock Ritual boot is the smallest allowed by NHL regulations, but as Lemieux points out, there are definite benefits to getting the boot cut to match your skate size on a custom order -- doubly because of the sliding toe-bridge and how it works (which I'll be getting into a little more in my next LTR post). The ability to get a perfect front-to-back connection while maintaining the lateral movement of the sliding toe-bridge is a wonderful feeling for guys (like us) who have become used to lots of slack and a laggy, sloppy boot.

I do think getting properly sized pads is key, but it's even more important to take advantage of the adjustable boot-straps to change the way the Rituals fit.

The Rituals are a relatively stiff, straight single-break pad out of the box, but the internal thigh-break is really clever: it will break in quickly if you flex it back and forth for a few minutes. I was really quite impressed by this. (More in the next post...) One point of jargon: Warrior calls the Rituals "double-break pads" in which they count the ankle-break and the lower knee-break; what most goalies (Lemieux and I included) mean by "double break" is a pad that has external breaks (ie. in the vertical roll) above and below the knee; the ankle-break isn't usually counted.