I'm in possession of...
a big black bag of GOALIE GEAR! WOO!
The lovely and charming Scott, The Canadian Goalie, brought me his old stuff tonight. Sounds like the pads need some straps and I'll need a jill and goalie pants and a dangler to wear with my player lid, but that's about it, assuming the rest of it fits okay. He included his old mask but the chin is busted up and it's not safe to wear, but I put it on anyway when I got home just because I've never worn a goalie mask. It was smelly and awesome!
Anyway, I'm completely stoked and probably also completely naive as to what I've gotten myself into, but that's okay.
Had a great practice (even got a sick backhanded goal on one of the drills... I think backhanded goals are my thing... the goalies assume I've got no aim on the backhand but it actually seems a bit better than forehand for some reason) and then we did two 20 minutes periods of scrimmage that were really fun and I felt like I was skating well and had a little more puck action than usual (for me).
Got a throbber of a headache though. Advil needs to start working pronto.
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8 comments:
Nooo on the dangler! Rattly, annoyingy, not-doing-it's-job-y danglers are bad!
Check out the maltese, they are great. The guys there will also work with you on customization (within reason, of course) and they will embroider your initials on the thing gratis.
I started out with a dangler, and it got in my way, got caught on my helmet or my gear, and wouldn't work in the most important times.
Think about it: your neck is most exposed either on rising shots or when you're down and moving around. Well the dangler is very light so when you go from a crouch to having to stand up on a rising shot, it's going to rise with you - and is so light that it rises faster than you do. The result is that the dangler is up around your eyes (which are already protected) leaving your throat exposed. If you're stretching out when you're down on the ice (ie laying on the ice) then the same thing can happen.
The maltese combo fixes all these problems. (I don't get any remuneration for their sales.)
Seriously, check it out:
http://maltesehockey.com/html/store.html
Is that enough protection if I'm wearing a player helmet though (a la Osgood)? I was actually considering a dangler and maltese-like neck protector. The thought of not having a dangler makes me feel very exposed, which isn't a good thing psychologically.
Also, I think you're overestimating how fast I can get up... ;)
What do you mean by Osgood-like player helmet? You want to be very, very careful with your lid. As my goalie buddy put it: you break your arm or your leg, it will heal. You break your brain, maybe not.
Seriously, skimp on everything else, but spend your gear dough on the helmet.
For example, check the bars on the cage: I know a guy who took a shot to the mask and it bent one of the bars in and nearly took out his eye. You want the "inside" bars to be the ones that wrap around the opening side-to-side - and you want them to extend over the edges of the actual helmet so they have to go through that too before they poke you in the head. You also want a goalie cage. Do not play goal with a player cage.
As for the dangler, I would say to try it out and see if you like it. They're like $25 at a sporting goods store.
Well, I know myself... if I have doubts about my protection, I'm gonna be incredibly flinchy, which is no good. So I'm obviously gonna have to do some more research and probably have a talk with DH about how this is gonna go down.
check out goaliestore.com. You'll have to sift through a lot of kids "Am I good?" type of messages, but there's some pretty good info there, on a wide array of gear.
Yep, that's my go-to site for this stuff. And it seems the combos out there are not player combos... they're some kind of retro weird stuff. My head is spinning. No wonder goalies are bonkers.
remember that nothing replaces just going to a store and trying stuff on. Hopefully there are some stores local enough to you to facilitate that.
Nope. Nearest store with anything other than goalie sticks is in Dallas.
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