Show off your Gear (Note: Any images posted here can be posted on @TheGoalNet Instagram)

[TheGoalNet]

@Hills - I will ask again at some point to confirm and don't quote me on this... but yes 

From memory, the plan was 1 retail factory and 1 custom factory. Both offshore. It's been awhile since we had this chat, I didn't take notes, and things can change. That is why I am reluctant to call this facts

[keeperton]

I know a lot here aren't super big fans of all white gear, but here's my leg pads. Pictures are courtesy of Cam at The Hockey Shop in Surrey back in July. I'll need to get an updated picture now that they've seen play.

[TheGoalNet]

Like the old leclair graphic, clean! 

[DALV1]

Very nice,clean and uncluttered.

[Murray]

@keeperton Vertical stitch is super clean. Love 'em.

[creasecollector]

Loving the vertical pattern. So nice and clean. 

[Imperative]

love the vertical stitch

[Kayen]

Fresh out of the box aaaaah

Edited November 30, 2017 by Kayen

[Moose75]

Found this old picture yesterday and wanted to share it. RBK Premiers! Probably my favorite and boldest set I've owned. It was like my little version of Fleury's sportsgold set. 

[TheGoalNet]

@Moose75 - Reminds me of Ant from GSBB... Wonder whatever happened to that guy. He introduced me to YouTube pre-Google buy out. 

[SaveByRichter35]

I loved those old P1 graphics

[Moose75]

48 minutes ago, SaveByRichter35 said:

I loved those old P1 graphics

Me too. Original P1 and P2 were two of my favorite stock graphics.  

[Chenner29]

2 hours ago, Moose75 said:

Me too. Original P1 and P2 were two of my favorite stock graphics.  

Man, those were the days! I worked retail then, during the transition from Koho to RBK branding.

Do you know if your set was made at Lefevre or CCM?  You could tell by type of font they used in the embroidery. 

If it was in block letters, it was made at Lefevre.  Cursive font means it was done at CCM.  The RBK branded CCM gloves were really weird and the closure felt "off" - didn't matter if it was a 580 break or 590.  

As employees, we had no way of requesting where we wanted our pads to be done.

My buddy had a pair of Koho 585s (which were basically 580 graphic with a single break below the knee) made at CCM.
They were produced with the RBK knee block and the 580 calf wrap.

I ordered Koho 590s the week right after he put his order in and requested the RBK knee block.  I got the RBK calf wedge instead with the standard 3 piece knee wing that came on the Kohos.

Another one of my buddies requested the thumb wedge on the blocker with a 590 break glove and got a 580 break glove.

Such a wild and wacky time to be alive...lol

[keeperton]

On 11/29/2017 at 6:51 PM, TheGoalNet said:

@Moose75 - Reminds me of Ant from GSBB... Wonder whatever happened to that guy. He introduced me to YouTube pre-Google buy out. 

I remember that guy. He had new gear almost every 5 months it seemed.

[raucebyalien]

On 11/30/2017 at 6:13 AM, Chenner29 said:

Man, those were the days! I worked retail then, during the transition from Koho to RBK branding.

Do you know if your set was made at Lefevre or CCM?  You could tell by type of font they used in the embroidery. 

If it was in block letters, it was made at Lefevre.  Cursive font means it was done at CCM.  The RBK branded CCM gloves were really weird and the closure felt "off" - didn't matter if it was a 580 break or 590.  

As employees, we had no way of requesting where we wanted our pads to be done.

My buddy had a pair of Koho 585s (which were basically 580 graphic with a single break below the knee) made at CCM.
They were produced with the RBK knee block and the 580 calf wrap.

I ordered Koho 590s the week right after he put his order in and requested the RBK knee block.  I got the RBK calf wedge instead with the standard 3 piece knee wing that came on the Kohos.

Another one of my buddies requested the thumb wedge on the blocker with a 590 break glove and got a 580 break glove.

Such a wild and wacky time to be alive...lol

This was around the time I first joined the GSBB, I remember whilst Rbk were rolling out the P1's post-lockout, for a few months pro's could still get Koho branded 590/580 sets (photo below is of the last set of 590s I remember seeing in the pros 05-06 season).

And you also had MAF going from P1's to Rbk branded 590's and back again.

One of the biggest things I remember from Lefevre back then was that they refused to do any mods to their gear even for pros, as their ethos was 'this is the way we've designed it, this is the way its supposed to work' so it was a big deal when then finally offered a double break on the P2s!
 

[TheGoalNet]

@raucebyalien - That's such a great point! That was the main reason I loved their gear back in the day. I felt like I was getting exactly what the best pros had. A 590 with 580 graphics was a mind blowing thing at the time!!! Raycroft took off his toe caps to get a different boot angle... LIKE WHOA!!! 

However, between the transition to Pat Lefebvre or CCM's stronger influence, the mods are paying off. CCM told me the other day that 2017-2018 is the first year that 50% on NHL goal are in CCM gear. They are pretty serious about their data and don't count the 1 game call ups, etc too 

 

[coopaloop1234]

On 12/1/2017 at 12:07 PM, TheGoalNet said:

However, between the transition to Pat Lefebvre or CCM's stronger influence, the mods are paying off. CCM told me the other day that 2017-2018 is the first year that 50% on NHL goal are in CCM gear. They are pretty serious about their data and don't count the 1 game call ups, etc too 

Does that take into account the CCM/Reebok split when the first Eflex series came out?

[Chenner29]

8 hours ago, raucebyalien said:

This was around the time I first joined the GSBB, I remember whilst Rbk were rolling out the P1's post-lockout, for a few months pro's could still get Koho branded 590/580 sets (photo below is of the last set of 590s I remember seeing in the pros 05-06 season).

And you also had MAF going from P1's to Rbk branded 590's and back again.

One of the biggest things I remember from Lefevre back then was that they refused to do any mods to their gear even for pros, as their ethos was 'this is the way we've designed it, this is the way its supposed to work' so it was a big deal when then finally offered a double break on the P2s!

GSBB was lightning in a bottle in those years.  It came around at the perfect time...

There was so much stuff going on in the background in the pro ranks. 

The league had just resumed play after the lockout with new sizing restrictions and you had guys like Snow come up with pretty clever ways to trick the system (boot risers??)

Smart phones were starting up around then, so you'd get potato cam pictures of guys at training camp or during games. Pro Return gear became more readily available both by retailers and on platforms like eBay/Craigslist/etc.  Folks on GSBB would obsess over strap placement, an extra inch here or there, "pro logos" (lol) - then others would get the same mods to their personal set and people collectively lost their shit.

We had Lefevre in one corner, not willing to make even the smallest change to their design.  On the other side, we had CCM who'd clone and mod anything if you'd ask (and were a pro).  Turco, Belfour, Brodeur et al. had Vector graphics on their gear.   Someone decided to make their gear available at retail.  I took a lot of calls during that time for Brodeur or Belfour spec CCMs. 

TPS released a Lundqvist spec pad and I swear to God, we must have gotten a dozen calls a day from guys in Sweden calling in at 2am their time wanting to buy it and I never had an idea why.  They were something like 34+4s and the superficial knee rolls looked like they were moved DOWN on the face of the pad to make the pad look taller.  The glove would never close.  I don't remember anything particular about the blocker.

For us regular joes, if you wanted custom it was pretty much Vaughn or Brian's, and the Brian's gear was (IMO) pretty bad around that time. 

I ordered a set of V2s once, one of my requests was for HD foam in the outside roll. I was promptly shut down.  I was told "it'll cause the clarino/jenpro in that area to wear much faster, and from the inside."  The V3 came out a year later and guess what?  There's HD foam in the outside roll! 

[raucebyalien]

On 12/1/2017 at 12:07 PM, TheGoalNet said:

@raucebyalien - That's such a great point! That was the main reason I loved their gear back in the day. I felt like I was getting exactly what the best pros had. A 590 with 580 graphics was a mind blowing thing at the time!!! Raycroft took off his toe caps to get a different boot angle... LIKE WHOA!!! 

However, between the transition to Pat Lefebvre or CCM's stronger influence, the mods are paying off. CCM told me the other day that 2017-2018 is the first year that 50% on NHL goal are in CCM gear. They are pretty serious about their data and don't count the 1 game call ups, etc too 

Haha yeah at the time I had a real begrudging respect for them being so hard line against mods and so confident in their own designs, although I guess at the time of the last Kohos / P1s / P2s everything was coming out of the Quebec factory so having to deal with mods would of also had a serious impact on production.

I think THC (as the parent company) really hit a home run when they decided to ditch having the 'old' CCM factory (where Blockades, Vectors, X-pulses & Larceny's came from) do their hybrid line, and instead cashed in on the following and reputation that Lefebvre has by creating the E-Flex line. Although it did rob us of the Larceny 2 line

In europe especially, because CCM / Adidas / THC (whatever they are these days!) is a such a massive company, has great distro and can mass produce in china, they've taken over a huge amount of the guys who would otherwise be Vaughn guys. 

On 12/1/2017 at 3:02 PM, Chenner29 said:

TPS released a Lundqvist spec pad and I swear to God, we must have gotten a dozen calls a day from guys in Sweden calling in at 2am their time wanting to buy it and I never had an idea why.  They were something like 34+4s and the superficial knee rolls looked like they were moved DOWN on the face of the pad to make the pad look taller.  The glove would never close.  I don't remember anything particular about the blocker.

For us regular joes, if you wanted custom it was pretty much Vaughn or Brian's, and the Brian's gear was (IMO) pretty bad around that time. 

I ordered a set of V2s once, one of my requests was for HD foam in the outside roll. I was promptly shut down.  I was told "it'll cause the clarino/jenpro in that area to wear much faster, and from the inside."  The V3 came out a year later and guess what?  There's HD foam in the outside roll! 

That was massive difference back then - Rbk / Lefebvre = no mods allowed, then most GSBB guys ordering custom Velocities = a laundry list of mods; squared off thigh rises (before they were standard), Lehtonen knees, pro logos etc!

Can't blame the Swedish guys for going nuts over Lundqvist when he broke into the NHL - from what I remember Tommy Salo was the most prominent Swedish goalie at the time and had just ducked out the way of a shot in a World Championship! Even in the UK I occasionally played against a guy who had the full Lundy classic TPS setup in NYR colours with the shifted knees and big rises - he even topped it off with a Lundy Frolunda jersey!

[TheGoalNet]

12 hours ago, coopaloop1234 said:

Does that take into account the CCM/Reebok split when the first Eflex series came out?

I’m talking CCM by Lefevre 

[Moose75]

On 11/30/2017 at 1:13 AM, Chenner29 said:

Man, those were the days! I worked retail then, during the transition from Koho to RBK branding.

Do you know if your set was made at Lefevre or CCM?  You could tell by type of font they used in the embroidery. 

If it was in block letters, it was made at Lefevre.  Cursive font means it was done at CCM.  The RBK branded CCM gloves were really weird and the closure felt "off" - didn't matter if it was a 580 break or 590.  

As employees, we had no way of requesting where we wanted our pads to be done.

I think that was the most exciting time for me too. That's when gear used to have cooler graphics, and would come in weird color combinations (like Colorado or Dallas colors), not just white with red or blue. Seems like now it's all about specs, and the graphic is an afterthought. 

I'm pretty sure it was block letters, so Lefevre it is. If I recall there was a difference in the graphic or logo placement on the gloves too if they came from CCM's factory.

[TheGoalNet]

For current model stuff, a tag = made in Canada and Lefevre embroidered into the pad = China 

[estogoalie]

This is my current gear setup for 2017-2018. Usually I use the leg pads and gloves for 3-4 seasons, so these are about mid life now in their second season.

Leg Pads: Vaughn Velo 4's (second season)

Chest: Heaton 5 (First season, had it in storage, replaced my old H5)

Gloves: Brian's SubZero 2

Mask: ReidiC (first season)

Pants: TPS GP104 (Second season)

Skates: New Graf Cowling with Step Steel, and G50 boot

Jock: Brown JB2000

Bag: Frontier (hiding under the gear)

Sticks: Frontier and Montreal

[coopaloop1234]

Picked up a pair of CR1's. 

The hockey shop in Surrey had a fire and is now offloading their gear for cheap. Got these for 100$ off each. 

[creasecollector]

Showed them off in the CCM thread, but I'd like to share them in this thread also.

My new CCM Premier's! Love them so far. My previous setup was RBK Premier 2's.