Speed Hockey The Savior - Hills

[Hills 713]

 

Speed Hockey The Savior Initial Preview

Personal Details
Male
6'3”
220 lbs
Forward and Defence
B-C level hockey
Usage time: 6 Games

Thank you to Modsquad Hockey, JR, and Speed Hockey for sending these to me to do a review on.

Fit: The Speed Hockey Savior comes in 2 sizes, Small and Large and Small has been designed to fit players about 5'7" up to about 6'2" or 6'3. I was told that a Large will fit higher up the calf and give more protection in calf, tendon, ankle and achilles region. While I do not have huge legs these do take a bit of stretching to fit around the back of my calfs, and they do allow to stretch to accommodate this, but I am unsure how this would fit for someone who has giant and muscular legs as mine are anything but. The annoying part in terms of fit is the straps themselves, since the straps barely reach around the Savior when it is not on my leg, adding the bulk of my leg as well makes you really have to pull the straps tight to even come close to doing up the velcro. It has happened multiple times where I am pulling one side of the velcro and the other side slips out of my hand and ends up falling out of the back of the plastic guard. It would be nice if one side of the elastic strap was sewn into the plastic guard and would attach to velcro on the back of it so you would never have to worry about the straps falling out of them to begin with.

So far these do not seem to offer much added protection compared to my admittedly excellent calf wrapping CCM Ultra Tacks shin guards, so I am thinking a size Large would help with the tendon protection. But since these are said to fit someone my size I am going to stick with them.

Comfort: Wearing the Speed Hockey The Saviors is not uncomfortable in themselves, but adding them underneath my CCM Ultra Tacks shin guards and they become a bit awkward. While I am all for adding protection and don’t mind adding bulk, The Saviors end up pushing my shin guards away from my leg and off of my skate a bit. This in turn also pushes the knee of the shin guards tighter against my knee. The other annoying thing is that they feel bulky inside of my tendon guard in my skate, and while they don’t come too far down to really add protection they manage to make me feel like I am constantly pushing outwards on the tendon guard and give me a bit of fear of breaking my tendon guard. The force feels similar to if you removed your skates by using your tendon guards.

Protection: Since I have yet to been slashed, hit with a puck and thankfully I haven’t been stepped on I cannot comment on the protection of these yet. If I cannot test out the protection of these in a game setting I’ll have a teammate shoot pucks at me and slash me to test out what difference these make.

Weight: These come in at 144 grams. I cannot feel the weight of these while playing at all and they do not feel like they weigh my legs down. 

Durability: I cannot comment on this yet.

Intangibles: I feel the strapping system on these is pretty awful if I am honest. The exposed sticky velcro is facing the outside and thus the inside of your shin guard which could lead to premature wear on another piece of equipment. The straps are also positioned in such a fashion that they fall out of their holes often and they should really be sewn into place with a velcro patch on the backside of them.

I will continue to write about my experiences of the Speed Hockey The Savior calf protectors here.

 

[nikkatnight 4]

Nice review. I just recently heard about these and was interested in getting some. But would they be way too big for someone 5'5" tall?

[Hills 713]

On 12/5/2016 at 11:57 AM, nikkatnight said:

Nice review. I just recently heard about these and was interested in getting some. But would they be way too big for someone 5'5" tall?

Sorry I took so long to reply to this, I simply wouldn't recommend them because of the comfort issues I had and I don't think they are worth $100. I am also unsure how the sizing would work for someone shorter, I feel like a Large would cover more space for me but it seemed like I could get away with wearing a Small.

[Hills 713]

 

 

 

Speed Hockey The Savior Review

 

Personal Details

Male

6'3”

220 lbs

Forward and Defence

B-C level hockey

Usage time: 2 Months

 

Thank you to Modsquad Hockey, JR, and Speed Hockey for sending these to me to do a review on.

 

Fit: Fit has not changed, see the initial post about them for more details. I still believe a size Large would be more beneficial for me but I still fall into the size range for these calf guards. I also contacted Speed Hockey themselves and they reassured me I would fit into the small size. The straps don’t do much in terms of fit, they are too small and flexible to really lock the calf wrap in place. Perhaps that isn’t needed since when you put on your shin pads the shin pads kept the Saviors from moving. While I fit into the guidelines, I feel like a Large would’ve covered more and offered more protection 7/10

 

Comfort: Like I said previously, wearing the Speed Hockey The Savior calf guards is not uncomfortable by themselves. The problem is when you put your skates and shin pads on. The foam at the top of the guards would often get bunched up under my shin pads, which would have to be taken off and re-adjusted to fix that issue.

 

I tried wearing The Saviors a couple of ways, one was higher up so the ankle portion was not inside my skates. Wearing the guards this way caused my shin pads to protrude outwards from my skate and caused the Savior itself to push outwards against the tendon guard of my skate. The outcome of this was that my shin guards lost some of the excellent wrap, while The Saviors kept the protection on the back of my leg, the shin pads were considerably less snug and thus felt like they were moving around on my leg. Both setups of the Savior felt like it pushed my knee cap away from my knee. With this method my skating felt off balance the entire time with the pressure on the tendon guard causing the most discomfort.

 

The other way was when the Savior was pushed down more so that the ankle portion was overlapping with my skates (this can be seen in the video and in the these pictures). While this issue helped with the tendon guard issue a bit is greatly increased the uncomfort in my skates where the plastic sat on the inside of them. Every turn and cut I could feel the plastic against my ankle bones and that wasn’t the most pleasant feeling. Every time I worse these calf guards I wanted to take them off. 3/10
 

Protection: I unfortunately (for the sake of the review) did not receive a slash or puck to the back of the leg during my time with The Saviors. In the pictures it should be evident that these do indeed protect the achilles and the back of the leg more than just shin pads, and could possible stop an achilles laceration that has been seen in the NHL the last few years. N/A

 

Weight: These come in at 144 grams. I cannot feel the weight of these while playing at all and they do not feel like they weigh my legs down. 10/10

 

Durability: I did not use them long enough to see an issues or to really comment on this.

 

Intangibles: I am going to re-iterate what I originally wrote for this area. I feel the strapping system on these is pretty awful if I am honest. The exposed sticky velcro is facing the outside and thus the inside of your shin guard which could lead to premature wear on another piece of equipment. The straps are also positioned in such a fashion that they fall out of their holes often and they should really be sewn into place with a velcro patch on the backside of them. The foams are decently thick but not unique, the plastic is nothing special either and is fairly thin and cheap feeling. While I believe it does the job it doesn’t scream quality. For $100 I’d really expect more than what is offered by The Saviors. 1/10

 

Conclusion: If you are someone who is extremely paranoid at achilles injuries than perhaps The Savior calf guards are for you, but at $100 I cannot recommend them. I’d simply recommend kevlar socks and a good pair of shin pads because for me the lack of comfort made them almost unbearable to wear. If these were sold at $40 than I’d say give them a chance, but at $100 I simply cannot recommend purchasing Speed Hockey’s The Savior calf guards. 2/10