Goalie pad sizing question

[Xuno 14]

I'm pretty new to goalie. I always wanted to when I was a kid,but finally just got the chance to start when I was 22 earlier in the year. I still skate out more, but I have an absolute blast in net...even if I'm not great at going in the butterfly yet and I just Hasek dive at everything that comes at me lol. I'm weird about it too...right handed and I shoot left but play goal FR. Just felt more comfortable to me.

Anyway, I bought all of my equipment new except the leg pads which were given to me for free. They're Vapor XX's, nice enough, but way too small. 30''. I'm only barely 5'7, but they still look noticeably too short. I found the general size measurements online, and my pad size comes out to like 28'' because of my small skate size. (5.0)

What general size would I be looking at? Thanks in advance

[Netminder32 32]

Goalie pad sizing is more based on your ankle to knee measurement. But even that is loose sometimes. I'm 5'7" also and I use a 34" pad. I've tried everything from 33" to 36" pads from a variety of manufacturers with a variety of thigh rise options over the years. I finally settled on 34's. You just want to find pads that your knee sits in the middle of the knee cradle when you are wearing them.

[Law Goalie 147]

Xuno, don't worry about incorporating your skate size into your pad measurement, unless you're ordering custom; at retail, the boot is going to be within about 1/2" of the 7" standard on almost all pads. Some pads *feel* like they have a longer or shorter boot because of thickness at the ankle-break (especially the chunkier Reebok pads), but they're all around 7".

You may find that the larger intermediate pads fit you as well or better than the smaller pro pads.

NM32 is bang-on when he says that the fit in the knee-cradle is the primary and absolutely dominant aspect of sizing and fit, although ATK (ankle to knee) has gradually been supplanted by FTK (floor to knee) by practically every manufacturer. He's also right to suggest that there is no 'general size' you'd be looking at: it's a matter of trying on and trying out. ATK and FTK charts are an alright guideline, but they are by no means wholly reliable.

Selection aside, you *can* adjust how a pad fits between the ankle and knee by tightening or loosening, and ideally by *moving* the boot-strap, in conjunction with more or less slack at the toe-bridge. For example, you can use the 'Lundqvist Method' to put the boot-strap behind your Achilles tendon (through an added loop at the back of your skate; Google Images is your friend), and thus pull a relatively 'short' pad much higher up your leg; conversely, you can let a bigger pad 'sag' down your foot. The Warrior Rituals (aka Smith 6000s) have a really neat modular boot-strap to do this, but it's do-able with others. This kind of adjustment opens up a lot more sizing options.

Good decision to go FR: your gloves will be a lot cheaper! (Check Goaliemonkey...)

(As a brief aside, there is much to admire in anyone who follows Hasek's game, but a mistake to suggest that he didn't have total command of his butterfly, or that he dove around insanely; he just didn't find down movement with his skate blades as broadly applicable as some, though that may have been because he figured out a way of moving laterally without engaging his skates, aka the Hasek Roll.)

[Xuno 14]

Totally forgot to respond to this...thank you for the info guys!