Quick Hits: Goalie Gear, Aeros, mashed potatoes, Riverboat Gamblers
My colleague over at In Goal Magazine posted a great piece on the new "proportional goalie gear" rules coming out next season. I haven't done any research on this yet, but it really does sound like a preposterous scheme.
The logic reads to me something like this:
- The league wants more shots to get past the goalies.
- A few goalies take advantage and wear bigger gear than they need to for their size.
- These oversized goalies are the problem with getting enough pucks in the net (I have yet to see proof of either the fact that goalie gear is to blame for this or that hockey actually needs more scoring to be entertaining... I blame Jacques Lemaire for the whole kit and caboodle, but that's just me).
- So the undeniable conclusion is that goalie gear must be smaller.
- But goalies are different sizes, so each goalie needs to have different rules.
- So let's spend 3 years trying to find a solution.
- Uh oh, we spent 3 years trying to find a solution and really still don't have a good one, but now everyone's looking at us and we'd look more foolish to say, "Never mind. That was a dumb idea. How about you skaters just f**king go to the net more instead of being a bunch of pansies?" than to actually put these overly complex and likely fruitless rules in place. But hey, at least we have job security!
(Update: Okay, that wasn't what Hutch meant by minors, but I got John to ask Mill about this anyway since he was speaking to him already, and yes, the NHL rules for goalie gear will apply in the AHL as well.)
-----------------------------
The Aeros had their home opener last night and I find myself awash in a lack of excitement for this team. I'm sitting with the feeling for a while. It's a 5 game home stand, so I'll get a better read over a few games, but right now... meh. There's just no component to this team that thrills me. I dunno. Giving it time...
Maybe my problem is that pre-season was a little too exciting. Heh. *sigh*
-------------------------------
That said, the mashed potatoes they serve in the dining room before the game are so good. I feel like I need to go for a run just so I can have an excuse to eat a whole bunch of them. Ohhh, I can call it carbo loading for Sunday's game. Ha.
-------------------------------
I like this song.
Posts
4 comments:
Well, where was, last night, the vaunted 'defense' they were hyping when building this team of 'veterans'?
RAU still rhymes with
WOW by me ;-).
Goalie blues for Aeros?
"Star"Goalie was a real star, agreed.
And Mathieu Beaudoin not a shiner, still, we like him anyway.
Crowd seemed bigger than quoted, or maybe just louder!
I definitely have the goalie blues, but I'm not talking about it yet. I want to give them a chance.
John just likes to rile everyone up about Beaudoin, but he really was invisible last night. I'm okay with that. He's the Bad Guy now. Hope he never scores against the Aeros.
Hey - thanks for the shout out on the goalie gear article.
My real fear was actually that it wold go to minor hockey - i.e. kids' hockey.
They already made parents of kids with 12" pads buy 11" replacements - admittedly most kids would have grown out of them but parents previously could rely on being able to re-sell their old gear - which the new rules made essentially worthless.
I can't imagine if they had proportional sizing for kids.
Oh, I see. Yeah, that's really not feasible. I do understand going to 11" pads, but making the rest proportional is a bit crazy. It's not like amateur goalies have that kind of access to gear makers that pros do to get custom gear.
Post a Comment