Starting in Goal as an Adult

[guitarfreek92 7]

Does anyone have a pic of the tabs from the halo straps?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

54 minutes ago, guitarfreek92 said:

Does anyone have a pic of the tabs from the halo straps?

Assuming you mean HAL straps... 

[guitarfreek92 7]

3 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

Assuming you mean HAL straps... 

No the calf straps not toe ties 

[badger_14 601]

Once again, I apparently play my best hockey when sick.  Not sure how that works, besides the fact that I'm not able to overthink what I'm doing.

Finally taken to wearing regular knee protection after Misha tried to cripple me a couple weeks ago.  Still sorting out the thicket of elastic and velcro, but the knee guards are comfortable and stay in place and prevent receiving a charley horse from an errant puck. 

Getting an occasional twinge along my incisions, but it's much better than the first week back.  Flexibility is pretty much back in place, and increased in a couple of spots.  Stamina is still dubious, but the only thing that fixes that is actually playing.

A friend found me a copy of Vladislav Tretiak's Manual for Young Goaltenders.  It's got some interesting exercises in it.  And, of course, reading about hockey from a Soviet perspective is interesting.  (the book is in Russian, published around 1986 I believe).  Lots of agility, hand-eye coordination. 

[tedpenguins 93]

It seems I need to update you guys big time. I did end up redoing the pad wrap on my Reebok's with a black and yellow theme. They came out pretty decent (I'll post pics in a bit). Christmas time this year was also extremely good to me; I ended the day with a full set of Bauer S150's. By far the lightest pads on the market, I kept double checking just to make sure I didn't forget to put anything on before I got out on the ice. The power you can kick out rebounds with are completely amazing and I don't think I've ever felt a low end glove that is so easy to close right out of the box. My only problem so far is that the leg channel and knee cradle are maybe half the size of what my Reebok's are and my CCM pro knee pads get caught up on the landing pad almost everytime I butterfly. I've tried about every strapping possibility that I can think of but nothing has fixed the problem. Any ideas? At this point I'm thinking of just trying on a bunch of knee pads at LHS and I would assume the Bauer supremes would be meant to fit with the pad. I'm probably going to have to go with stock for now just because I have games starting up again this week and there's no chance I would go out on the ice without knee pads. 

I'll post pics of all the pads and the leg channels in a bit.

[badger_14 601]

47 minutes ago, tedpenguins said:

 My only problem so far is that the leg channel and knee cradle are maybe half the size of what my Reebok's are and my CCM pro knee pads get caught up on the landing pad almost everytime I butterfly. I've tried about every strapping possibility that I can think of but nothing has fixed the problem. Any ideas? At this point I'm thinking of just trying on a bunch of knee pads at LHS and I would assume the Bauer supremes would be meant to fit with the pad. I'm probably going to have to go with stock for now just because I have games starting up again this week and there's no chance I would go out on the ice without knee pads. 

I'll post pics of all the pads and the leg channels in a bit.

I have Bauer reactor pads and Bauer supreme kneepads.  I actually did have some trouble with the pads getting stuck on the kneepads at first, but it turned out to be a strapping issue for me.   However: it seems like a lot of people find the supreme kneepads very uncomfortable and ill-fitting, so ymmv with those from the get-go anyway.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

2 hours ago, tedpenguins said:

It seems I need to update you guys big time. I did end up redoing the pad wrap on my Reebok's with a black and yellow theme. They came out pretty decent (I'll post pics in a bit). Christmas time this year was also extremely good to me; I ended the day with a full set of Bauer S150's. By far the lightest pads on the market, I kept double checking just to make sure I didn't forget to put anything on before I got out on the ice. The power you can kick out rebounds with are completely amazing and I don't think I've ever felt a low end glove that is so easy to close right out of the box. My only problem so far is that the leg channel and knee cradle are maybe half the size of what my Reebok's are and my CCM pro knee pads get caught up on the landing pad almost everytime I butterfly. I've tried about every strapping possibility that I can think of but nothing has fixed the problem. Any ideas? At this point I'm thinking of just trying on a bunch of knee pads at LHS and I would assume the Bauer supremes would be meant to fit with the pad. I'm probably going to have to go with stock for now just because I have games starting up again this week and there's no chance I would go out on the ice without knee pads. 

I'll post pics of all the pads and the leg channels in a bit.

Do you wear socks over them?

[bunnyman666 445]

+1 on the socks!

[tedpenguins 93]

20 minutes ago, IPv6Freely said:

Do you wear socks over them?

I do not but I can give that a shot. Thank you!

[IPv6Freely 2092]

15 minutes ago, tedpenguins said:

I do not but I can give that a shot. Thank you!

Give it a shot. I didn't wear socks either until I got my Passau knee pads and they'd get caught up in my knee cradle. Shouldn't actually be an issue anymore now that I have different pads, but I'm used to socks now. 

There was actually a time where I cut off the bottom half of a pair of plain black reebok socks and wore those over my knee pads. I figured cutting off the bottom would satisfy my desire to not wear socks but still cover my knee pads. But then when I got on a full time team I started wearing full socks and honestly don't even notice. 

[tedpenguins 93]

Alright, so it worked but not, all at the same time. It keeps the pad from getting caught but the way the pad sits I don't get a good rotation. I'm gonna assume that when the pad was getting caught, the strap had just enough room to make it feel like I had good rotation on the ice. 

[tedpenguins 93]

 

Here's my sets. There was a bit of yellow on the CCM glove but it fell off in my bag and I haven't gotten around to replacing it. 

[bunnyman666 445]

On another forum, it was suggested to strap in with the pads rotated to see where you hang up in the carpet fly. I had never tried that, but it makes total sense to me. You would see what is hanging up on your pads. Wear what you wear on ice to do this accurately, and YES- I would wear your skates with regular guards taped onto your cowlings to prevent them cutting your rug or the hard floor blunting your edges.

Myself- I wear socks over my bulky Factory Mad knee guards and don't use the knee cradle strap on my pad. I rotate easily. Of course I am totally Monsterised (Monster Hals, leg straps, and K strap), so my leg is still held to the pad despite not being strapped in at the knee cradle. 

I am actually using Supreme One.9 pads these days. I don't think there is all that much difference in the leg channel of your pads and my pads with the major difference being the straps. Plenty of other difference, mind, with the Myflex bars and the like, but I am certain the leg channel is not all that much different. With the Monsterisation of my pads, I would think the difference is now even smaller. 

As much as I poopooed the Od1n series, I like the aestheitcs of the lower end stuff more than the upper end. Good looking stuff you have.

[psulion22 402]

With modern larger knee pads and butterfly technique, you need open landing areas.  I don't see any way to get that without going knee-to-calf with any straps, even the elastic.  Any strap behind the knee across is going to cause binding and lack of rotation.

If you are missing the landing gear, you can get smaller knee pads which will allow you to get closer to the front of the pad and on to the gear.  I would normally recommend Passau, but since you are smaller, they are going to be too big and cause you the same problems.  I would look into either the Bauer 1S or Warrior Ritual X Pro retail guards.  Both have a pretty slim profile and are still protective.  I have the Sr version of the Ritual X, and I really like it.  If it were better cushioned in the landing area, I woud be wearing them over my Passau's.  I think the Pro version will address that and also be more protective.  You may also consider the strapping system that Monster Hockey sells that goes around your calf.  It replaces the knee strap, so you get a much more open knee cradle, but it still keeps your leg in place and the pad in control.

[bunnyman666 445]

27 minutes ago, psulion22 said:

You may also consider the strapping system that Monster Hockey sells that goes around your calf.  It replaces the knee strap, so you get a much more open knee cradle, but it still keeps your leg in place and the pad in control.

That would be the K-Strap :)

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Played pickup for the first time since October. I get up for work at 5am at my new job so getting home at midnight and being unable to sleep for an hour or two isn't a good thing. But with no league hockey the last two weekends I wanted to get in a tune-up before spring league starts up this weekend. 

Things went moderately well until my lower back started acting up. I was using a new stick that I bought solely for the paint scheme thinking I could adjust to it despite it being a few inches shorter than what I usually use. I was wrong. A couple good saves, a couple boneheaded plays. All in all a decent enough night I guess.

 

[tedpenguins 93]

Finally got the strapping figured out before my game friday night. I ended up putting the thigh board back in just to have a second strap to secure onto my leg. The socks worked great and I didn't seem to have any rotational problems. I might see about adding a velcro patch near the calf strap so I can do my normal knee-calf strapping that I like with my Reebok's but I'll wait to give this new strapping a chance. 

When I got the pads I decided to go up a size just because my 5 hole always seemed to be a problem and the little added coverage would be nice. Greatest decision ever.

After being in an actual game with the pads I'm absolutely blown away by them. They're so light that I can actually be extremely comfortable coming out from the net to play the puck; it almost feels like I'm just wearing super tall shin pads. My slides seemed almost twice as fast and it feels like I'm not even wearing leg pads at all. The glove had a few pop outs but some time breaking it in and Keeps33 should fix that. 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Last weeks pickup. Some good, some bad. 

 

[PaulieWalnuts 5]

Played my first game back in net after a 15yr hiatus (pick up).  Overall things went well.  My flexibility is about 80% of what it used to be but I know I can work on that and with new gear I knew things were going to be stiff.  First half (when people actually play D) I let in two goals, one was a deflection off a guys elbow.  Second half when guys were gassed and not really going hard I faced a fair number of 2 on 1 and 2 on 0's.  I let in 4 but at that point I was just having fun and figured it was a good test.  Most important was I was aggressive at the top of the crease and really did a decent job with my stick breaking up passes coming from behind the net.  I need to work on my butterfly slides and my stick handling.  When I played growing up I shot cross handed with a twig that had a pretty flat blade.  My sticks now have a much different curve and cross handed is impossible.  Need to figure out what is more comfortable for me as far as the trapper under or on top when passing.  Oh and thank god for danglers cause that thing saved my throat from a wrist shot from the slot.   

Edited January 28, 2017 by PaulieWalnuts

[psulion22 402]

FML.

We were winning 1-0 last night with 19 seconds to go.  Faceoff in our zone to my right, empty net on the other end.  I was getting my wing lined up making sure they were there to get out to the extra attacker who was lined up behind the center high on the circle for the shot.  He was their best shooter and needed to be accounted for.  As I'm telling the board side wing to switch over and go straight to the shooter no matter where the puck goes, the ref drops the puck.  I wasn't ready.  The puck gets bounced around and goes right to the wing on the inside hash mark.  He takes a backhand swat at it and it loops up, bounces, and goes post in to the far side.  If I was set, it's an easy save.  But I didn't see what was happening until the puck bounced towards the net.  I reached with my stick, but it hopped over.  Game tied 1-1.  

Then the refs screw the pooch in OT.  Running clock, and coincidental minors occur.  They sort if out and send the guys in the box and their team goes nuts.  Their captain just argues and yells, while the clock is running the whole time.  Eventually he gets angry, and when my captain goes over to get the game moving, he punches him.  Double minor.  By the time they get that sorted out, there's less than 2 minutes left in the 5 minute 3v3 OT.  We get the 4 on 3 PP for that time but don't score.  The refs should have either stopped the clock while they were arguing, or told him to shut up and sit down while the clock was running.  To make it worse, for some reason they started the coincidentals from when they went into the box, not when the puck was finally dropped.  The result was that the other team's best player who was in the box, came out right away because their captain had argued more than 2 minutes off the clock.  The guys literally never served a penalty, they sat inthe box for two minutes while the captain screamed and then came out at the first whistle.

This is problematic because after the OT, we go to a shootout.  The puck had finally dropped at 1:58 left in OT.  That should have meant the coincidentals were still active when it ended.  And that would have meant their best player couldn't shoot in the shootout.  We lose 2-1 in the shootout on 5 shots.  I'm normally money in shootouts.  But this time I was awful.  Their best player goes first, dekes the hell out of me, but luckily missed the net.  That happened later too.  I had one that I did read and stop go off the inside of my elbow and in.  And the winner I had the whole way.  I kept with him and got over quick when he deked, and stopped the puck with my pad.  But the puck spun and rolled under me, and trickled 1'2" over the line.  On 5 shots, I made 1 save, got beat twice and got lucky, and allowed 2 goals to go through me.  Just awful.

[tedpenguins 93]

Recently picked up another team, this one a 35 and older league that needs tendys bad so they allowed me to join. Simply put, this team sucks. Since it's a group of older guys they obviously don't go full speed but the majority of them have been playing their whole lives. They understand concepts and how to cycle through the play but for whatever reason they can't seem to figure out that their D can't get caught low in the zone and that they can't stand still when they go for a poke check. I've had defensemen jump in front of me blocking my view and then purposely getting more in my line of sight as I yell screen. Between the 2 games they've only managed to put up 2 goals and hold play in the offensive zone for maybe a total of 3-4 minutes a game with no real chances on net. 

They play a bit faster than the league that I put videos up for but not as fast as a team that I occasionally sub for. Being out of my comfort zone isn't a problem at all here considering I've also had the opportunity to play with some draft picks and college players. Despite all that, I've let in 15 goals the last 2 games because of how crappy this team's defense is. Five goals last night came off of 2-on-1's or breakaways with the other 3 I let in actually being good goals. I completely understand that beer league is going to have bad defense and players that aren't going to backcheck but this is a bit over the top.

Even when the other team gets play set up in our end they all run around like chickens with their heads cut off. One minute there's a guy open in the slot followed by a guy wide open backdoor. If the bad defense was actually justifiable and they were putting up large goal counts I wouldn't have a problem with this but frustration is definitely starting to set in. I haven't counted shots against but just guessing I would say I'm probably seeing 40-50 shots while the other tendy is seeing maybe 10 at the most. 

[magnets 98]

Been a while since I was here, but thought I'd post about my season.

We had a short Summer season (I'm in Australia) of 8 games and post season.  While not my most spectacular figures early, finished off with a SV% of 0.891 with a 1.89GAA.  Went through the season undefeated (2 games went to shootout) in top place, earning ourselves a direct entry to the championship series of three games.

Game 1 we took easily, winning 3-0.  Game 2, I let in one goal - was a shot from the point that rebounded off me, deflected off a defender and left an easy open net.  Lost the game 1-0.  Game 3, had a shot from the blue line through a screen that I leant to see around the screen at exactly the wrong moment and wasn't set.  Just missed a toe save.  Then had a 3 on 0, that I read the pass, over-slid a little and the windmill came up empty.  Lost the game 2-0, and the series.

I'll take some consolation that I only let in a total of three goals in a three game series.  Just a shame that our only two losses for the season were in games that really mattered.

Now, on to the Winter season.

[badger_14 601]

At the Russian Embassy, this one guy had like 6 breakaways.  I was ... less than amused.  Particularly also when he nailed me in the forehead, and then another time (not a breakaway) when he hit my favorite defenceman with a shot in the ankle that had said defenceman limping to the bench and sitting out a few shifts.  (I was concerned.  Dude once broke my skate, an ankle would not be out of the question).  Dude is a getting a touch over-aggressive, I think.  I mean he's a pretty - ah- enthusiastic - player anyway (he shouts a lot.  Lord give me strength, I do not like the screamers.) but I'm about ready to pull a Hasek on him.  Otherwise, I actually had a pretty solid game.  My cranky knee felt really good (odd, since I didn't work out or stretch AT ALL yesterday, like I usually do), and I was tracking the puck really well.  Other than getting whaled on by Dude, I made a lot of good stops and felt happy with my play.

I've been thinking about upgrading my chest protector, which is probably going to involve a somewhat protracted effort to find something that fits me.   Fortunately, my paramedic classmate who is also a goalie is always up for gear-browsing so perhaps we'll go together.  (goaltending: better with a friend.) 

[tedpenguins 93]

Well I'm halfway through my winter season and just over a year of starting in net. I honestly can't believe how far my game has evolved and the confidence I've gained with my play in net. My first season, my team was towards the bottom of the league and my GAA was around 3.50.  Right now my team is at the top of the league and my GAA is the best in the league at 1.40 and 2 shutouts in 5 games. Thank you to all of you guys on here that have offered advice and criticism on my play, every little bit of it has helped. 

 

On another note, I've had about 30 skates in my Bauer gear and I absolutely love it. I've always heard that Bauer blockers are some of the best out there and I can 100% support that. I think I prefer my CCM glove over the Bauer just because the CCM has a deeper pocket, but the Bauer is decent enough. The pads can only be described with one word: AMAZING. They're so light, to the point that they feel like super long shin pads. I wore my Reeboks the other night just to switch it up a bit and I was surprised that I ever felt like my slides were fast while wearing those in the past. I got one hell of a workout wearing those bricks for a 2 hr skate. I'm sure we've all seen Bauer's commercial with Lundqvist demonstrating the rebound power that the Supreme pads have and I've felt this first hand now. I had a save on a weak one timer the other night that I managed to kick all the way out to the opposite blue line. Definitely would recommend!

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Had the best game of my life last night, which is funny because I strongly considered asking the captain to find a sub because I was so sick. 

Tracked everything well, moved well, made stops through traffic. Early in the first period I made a goal line glove save off a guy who was left alone in front. Late in the second period I made a blocker save on a shot that I lost almost immediately because of the number of bodies. I had picked it up off his stick just as he shot it and was able to track it for just long enough to stick my arm out. Lots of other pretty good saves in there as well. I wish I'd had the gopro up! 

Ended up winning 8-1. Unfortunately it's kind of an empty win because the other team had a goalie who had played roller but this was his first time playing ice. I felt pretty bad for him, though he was pretty decent, all things considered. He got some stick taps from me on more than one occasion when he made a big save. However at the same time, while this used to be our rival team (Dead Deer) they have turned over quite a bit and that rivalry isn't really there anymore. But they had this one dude I don't remember seeing before that went after our guys TWICE in the game. The first one I don't know what happened (didn't see the original play) but he lost his mind about our D spearing him (yeah, probably not...) and the second time was on a legit penalty where our guy interfered/tripped him and he went ballistic as a result. Normally in an 8-1 win you just feel kind of bad and keep the cheering to a minimum, etc. But then this guy acted like this (all late in the 3rd period) so that kind of changed the feelings on our bench for sure.

The 1 goal to break the shutout was with about 6 minutes left. I had covered the puck against the post/side of the net and APPARENTLY it wasn't fully covered (not sure how the ref was able to determine that, considering where he was... in the far corner) and their guy dug it out and roofed it. I was pretty pissed at the ref but in a 6-1 game at the time there's no point in making a scene about it. It's my own fault for not being able to find it and make sure it was covered, I guess. We scored two more almost immediately so that took some of the sting away.

Still... that's the second shutout I've been denied in my "career" on questionable calls. The first being my very first ever game in goal where we won 4-1 and the lone goal against was scored with their guy lying on top of me... Oh well. Onward!