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[shoot_the_goalie 281]

On 6/21/2020 at 2:49 PM, IPv6Freely said:

As far as your question, I would suggest goalie protective equipment (and I guess protective in general) innovation would be something I’d like to see. Specifically, new materials that protect but aren’t just a case of “throw more padding at it” like they’ve been mostly doing for years. They generally have slimmed goalie gear by giving it less padding or making the physical shape smaller.

I have a hard time seeing the NHL slimming down goalie equipment again.  There was a lot of resistance the first time around, and though it happened, I can't see it happening again in the near future.  I'm glad to see the Garth Snows of the world out of the game (not the player, but the padding profile), but unless goal scoring is way down again, I can't see the goalies being on board with reducing their mass even more.

However, I definitely can see player protective being much more slimmer/low-profile, with new, innovative materials.  Didn't the Bauer OD1N project play around with this?  Didn't they made a 3d scanned body suit that was extremely low profile?  What ever happened to that?  I know they took technologies from that project and applied it to current protective lines, but I would be very interested if they could create a fully customized suit that is very tight to the body, and instead of individual components of gear, could all be components incorporated into one suit.

Also, what about the Neuroshield?  I know there wasn't much evidence that it worked, but it would be great if manufacturers pushed the science on something like that to help with concussion issues.  If they were to perfect something like that, I would say that would be groundbreaking, and definitely worth the title of being innovative.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

51 minutes ago, shoot_the_goalie said:

I have a hard time seeing the NHL slimming down goalie equipment again.  There was a lot of resistance the first time around, and though it happened, I can't see it happening again in the near future.  I'm glad to see the Garth Snows of the world out of the game (not the player, but the padding profile), but unless goal scoring is way down again, I can't see the goalies being on board with reducing their mass even more.

However, I definitely can see player protective being much more slimmer/low-profile, with new, innovative materials.  Didn't the Bauer OD1N project play around with this?  Didn't they made a 3d scanned body suit that was extremely low profile?  What ever happened to that?  I know they took technologies from that project and applied it to current protective lines, but I would be very interested if they could create a fully customized suit that is very tight to the body, and instead of individual components of gear, could all be components incorporated into one suit.

Also, what about the Neuroshield?  I know there wasn't much evidence that it worked, but it would be great if manufacturers pushed the science on something like that to help with concussion issues.  If they were to perfect something like that, I would say that would be groundbreaking, and definitely worth the title of being innovative.

The problem was that they slimmed the goalies down without any increase in protection. I’m saying if they could come up with some sort of new materials that allow them to slim them down even further but actually increase protection, I’d be all for it. 

[shoot_the_goalie 281]

9 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

The problem was that they slimmed the goalies down without any increase in protection. I’m saying if they could come up with some sort of new materials that allow them to slim them down even further but actually increase protection, I’d be all for it. 

That's not what I'm referring too.  Slimming down the equipment even further, even if the level of protection is greater, is still not going to fly, cause you're reducing the mass that goalies have to block pucks.  Garth Snow didn't have all that huge padding extending from his shoulders to protect his body.

[shooter27 116]

1 hour ago, shoot_the_goalie said:

That's not what I'm referring too.  Slimming down the equipment even further, even if the level of protection is greater, is still not going to fly, cause you're reducing the mass that goalies have to block pucks.  Garth Snow didn't have all that huge padding extending from his shoulders to protect his body.

Goalie equipment was not invented to give goalies mass to block pucks, it was invented as a source of protection.  Now, I realize it has evolved into puck-blocking mass, but that’s not really why it exists.  I hope they do find a way to innovate with materials to provide goalies with quality protection in a form factor that is about the size of what goalie’s wore in the 80’s.  Assuming they do, and protection isn’t compromised, goalies would have a hard time arguing against the change.  Every time this discussion comes up, the argument they use is protection.  If you take the protection argument away, what do they have to fall back on?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

3 hours ago, shoot_the_goalie said:

That's not what I'm referring too.  Slimming down the equipment even further, even if the level of protection is greater, is still not going to fly, cause you're reducing the mass that goalies have to block pucks.  Garth Snow didn't have all that huge padding extending from his shoulders to protect his body.

Agreed, the gear is big so they can cheat. Wasn't originally, but that's certainly what it became. But the argument against slimming has always been protection, regardless of whether that was actually true, which means:

2 hours ago, shooter27 said:

Goalie equipment was not invented to give goalies mass to block pucks, it was invented as a source of protection.  Now, I realize it has evolved into puck-blocking mass, but that’s not really why it exists.  I hope they do find a way to innovate with materials to provide goalies with quality protection in a form factor that is about the size of what goalie’s wore in the 80’s.  Assuming they do, and protection isn’t compromised, goalies would have a hard time arguing against the change.  Every time this discussion comes up, the argument they use is protection.  If you take the protection argument away, what do they have to fall back on?

I agree completely. I'd love to see smaller goalies IF the protection is as good, if not better. The problem with the recent slimming down is that they didn't maintain protection so their complaints were justified.

Anyway, the point is that I'd like to see new materials for protection across the board, both goalies and skaters. I just think the benefit is going to be seen more for goalies. I'm sure many of them would actually prefer less bulk if protection was maintained.

[chippa13 1844]

The only goalie of the modern age who ever wore less than the maximum size allowed was Marty Broduer.

[Davideo 99]

I would eliminate thigh rises on leg pads. I've never heard any reasonable protection justification for them, rather simply to block pucks.  Until I tore my groin I played goalie some and had old pads with no thigh rise and when I tried some pads with just a modest +2" thigh rise the difference was noticeable. Much easier to close the 5 hole and block pucks low, inside the post.

[Hills 712]

2 minutes ago, Davideo said:

I would eliminate thigh rises on leg pads. I've never heard any reasonable protection justification for them, rather simply to block pucks.  Until I tore my groin I played goalie some and had old pads with no thigh rise and when I tried some pads with just a modest +2" thigh rise the difference was noticeable. Much easier to close the 5 hole and block pucks low, inside the post.

Thigh rise stops knees from getting destroyed. Remove those and you have to increase the allowed knee pad sizes to Giguere sizes which people complained about for being too big...

[shoot_the_goalie 281]

1 hour ago, chippa13 said:

The only goalie of the modern age who ever wore less than the maximum size allowed was Marty Broduer.

Well, that's cause he had 5 other goalies playing in front of him.  J/K!

[Davideo 99]

1 hour ago, Hills said:

Thigh rise stops knees from getting destroyed. Remove those and you have to increase the allowed knee pad sizes to Giguere sizes which people complained about for being too big...

Eh, you can still get hit on the knee with thigh rises depending on how your leg is angled, hence the usage of knee pads currently. And beefy knee pads are still much smaller than the average thigh rise. I do find it interesting that thigh boards were made illegal, but a a thigh rise is perfectly fine.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

8 hours ago, chippa13 said:

The only goalie of the modern age who ever wore less than the maximum size allowed was Marty Broduer.

Exactly my point

[steve66 45]

On 6/20/2020 at 6:13 PM, shooter27 said:

In response to some of the complaints in this thread regarding lack of innovation and constantly repackaging old gear as “new” models - former NHL Andy Sutton has acquired Verbero and apparently they have some interesting plans for innovating in the equipment space.  He talks a bit about it on this week’s 31 Thoughts podcast and I found it quite interesting.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb2RjYXN0LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9zaG93cy8zMS10aG91Z2h0cy9mZWVkL3BvZGNhc3Qv/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb2RjYXN0LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS8_cD0xNzUzNQ?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjYhPug8ZDqAhVEHjQIHZXVCtgQieUEegQIBhAE&ep=6

I've only just got around to this episode, too many podcasts on the go... but I thought it was a really interesting discussion with some interesting insight into the direction he's looking to take the brand. It will be interesting to see how the custom strategy and IPs work out. If you've not yet given it a listen, something interesting to fill your time with...