AdamL

My Step blacksteel for Graf Cowlings just arrived.  Let the profile experimenting begin.

I've been playing in Graf skates basically since I started playing goal.  It's all I've ever known...just call me Carey Price.  I've been tossing around the idea of switching out of the cowling and into a more modern holder, but then that brings up questions like, which one?  What profile should I use?  3mm or 4mm runners?  etc.

For the most part I'm really happy with how I skate on Graf steel, which best I can tell has a 26' radius out of the box based on the writeup about the new Pro Gs on the GoaliesPlus website.  But there are some things I'm not thrilled about.

1. The stock steel looks to be pitched to the rear ever so slightly when put on a flat surface, and we all know it's better to be on the balls of our feet.  The Graf cowlings aren't pitched super forward in the first place.
2. I need to keep a deep hollow on these to feel like I can get powerful pushes, but then that means I have to use a lot of energy to shuffle, especially for small movements.
3. Occasionally I catch an edge coming out of a t-push, I think both because of the deep hollow and because my weight is too far back at times.
4. Considering my V9s have a more traditional boot channel, a little more height would help me have a little more access to the ice, especially pivoting in the RVH, or being able to occasionally keep a wider stance.

The Step steel being taller will be a good initial experiment with being in a taller holder.  After that, I'm trying to find a profile I'm happy with that I can then carry over to the new steel in a XSG, True, or Bauer holder that I'll likely have swapped onto my Graf boots.

Anyway, after a couple e-mails back and forth Bob at No Icing Sports recommended I start with the 20'/32' combo mentioned on the first page of this thread, with a medium forward pitch.  He also suggested I try the A-Trap FBV with 1/2" inside, 5/8" outside, which should help with catching that outside edge when stopping on a t-push.  My first reaction to that 32' rear radius is that I'd expect to feel less mobile in some circumstances vs my current steel, given it's probably 26' front to back.  He insists otherwise, though.  But I'm very tempted to just go for the 15'/20'/28' triple combination, which he described as being for the very aggressive butterfly goaltender.  I'm not great, but I am aggressive. 

Reactions/thoughts welcome, and I look forward to providing some feedback as I figure out what the heck I'm doing.

I just picked up a Hyperlite myself. Looking forward to getting it out on the ice for sure.

I have and used to use a XLT 590 pro palm and had no issues breaking it in or using it at all.  All of the mid and bottom tier CCM gear I've tried on off the shelf has been horrendous, though.  P2.9, Eflex 4.9, etc...all of the gloves were basically unusable.  The mid tier Vaughn gloves are genuinely not bad, but a noticeable step down in quality from the domestic stuff.  Don't think I've tried on any of the other mid tier offerings.

If I could only have one piece of "pro" level gear, though, hands down it would be the catcher.  I think you can more easily get away with the mid tier price point gear for the blocker and pads.

Man I want some 12.2s.  The V9s are nice, but I should've waited.

Would love to hear from anyone who's gone the arthroscopic route, especially among the under 40 crowd.  Did you seek out a national expert like Dr. Philippon at the Steadman Clinic or Dr. Bryan Kelly at the NY Hospital for Special Surgery (who did Thatcher Demoko's hips), or go with someone local?  One or both hips?  How long were you laid up and what was the rehab and recovery like?

54 minutes ago, court31sierra said:

when you custom order you can select a full face carbon option on the blocker.

I ordered the full face carbon, actually. No idea if that's what's in it, but that is what I ordered.

33 minutes ago, ArdeFIN said:

Yes, but you get only to the plates on the inside, and the soft pillow between plates and your backhand is not reachable from there. Atleast hasn't been in the gloves I've opened. VE8 is the most recent what I've seen through. V6 has the same'ish construction too.

For the catcher then it seems not to be like in the gloves before V9 and would require some more investigation to make it better.

But if you work with Dennis I think that is all you need to do and it'll get fixed 

It's tough to see in photos, but that pillow looks to me like it's directly accessible underneath that flap.  Maybe it's attached somehow farther in as well; I guess we'll see what Dennis says.

I'm not going to worry about the glove, having to wear it a bit looser than I'd like to isn't the biggest deal and seems like it'd be a much bigger hassle to alter.

22 hours ago, ArdeFIN said:

To comment your glove concerns. Blocker padding is sewn in, so you'd have to open some sewing to be able to change the foam. That is possible to do, but not a simple job.

You didn't have a picture of the glove strap as a whole. I've moved the strap position towards the glove for the same reason you are mentioning and it does help a lot while you still can cinch the strap. This job once again requires dismantling the glove at the wrist area and also some sewing job. Not a big thing to do but not the easiest one either.

 

Thanks.  I actually think the blocker pad would be really easy to change out if you have the materials.  There's a little flap that covers the pad and it appears there's just one piece of lacing holding it in place, I'm going to reach out to Dennis to see if they have any suggestions.

On the glove front, hopefully the photos below will illustrate what I'm talking about.  The first is the V9 XP glove, and you can see that piece going over the wrist is attached on the pinky side and floats freely on the index finger side.

The 2-piece glove is the opposite, with the strap going over the wrist sewn in on the index finger side and floating free on the pinky side.  This latter approach makes no sense to me, as when I pull my wrist back as if presenting the glove, my index finger comes back much farther than my pinky, and having that side tighter is extremely limiting.  No idea why Vaughn did it this way on the 2-piece glove but it's dumb.

18 hours ago, Chenner29 said:

Hey man,

Flipping through this thread and I felt this post.  Not literally.  While my hip issues aren't as severe (I have hip impingement and anterior pelvic tilt), I have been able to get a ton of relief by starting a routine with a PRI (Postural Restoration Institute) practitioner, along with some FRC.  I don't know what methodologies you've tried, but I highly recommend PRI.  The guy I go to is has had success working with issues like this and has even been able to fix things without surgery.

The PRI stuff is mindblowing.  Prior to going to see him, my hips, quads, and ankles would be on fire after a light skate, to the point where I was considering a Tylenol regimen the morning after due to low back pain (along with everything else).  Since starting, I can hop in with a skills coach and his AAA guys, get blasted on for an hour straight and still feel like I can do another session immediately after.

When I did my first visit, he had me diagnosed within 30 seconds of seeing me walk and go through some basic motions.  The anterior pelvic tilt is obvious I think to most people in the PT realm, but he was able to pinpoint specific calluses on my feet even when I had my shoes on the whole time.  My toes were pointing outward (which if you think of it, is a huge reason why my hip internal rotation is so shit), my breathing was patterned incorrectly (not using my diaphragm), and I could palm the floor from standing without warmup.  We ran through some tests going through range of motion stuff, and then he'll give me things to work on to attack what he sees as deficient.  The exercises we are doing do not require any weight and very little equipment (yoga block, mat, maybe some resistance bands, and balls of various sizes).

It's a really methodical, customized approach to PT, and is honestly kind of a relief after having people hammer on pain points and then give me a couple squats, leg raises, and banded resistance excercises for so long now. 

To give you an idea - after the first visit and a daily regimen of some really basic wall exercises (I gave @seagoal a super basic one to try, along with some FRC stuff, maybe he can contribute to this and tell us how he's feeling), we tested on the second visit and concluded my pelvis is back to neutral so we went to work on on hip abduction (out to side) and adduction (past center line).  Another couple weeks of those exercises and we get to my most recent visit #3, where we found R hip abduction wasn't where we wanted it; the exercises should have handled it as my L hip ab-and-adduction were looking good, as well as my R hip adduction - we went one level up and now we are looking at how my right rib cage and neck are working and found some deficiencies there.  We ran through some different exercises with breathing and turning the head and got another 25 degrees out of R hip abduction in that visit....it's absolutely insane to me and it's working for me.  I think it may warrant a look with the things you have going on.

Anyhow, if you want this doc's info, PM me and I can link you up to his IG.  He's pretty responsive on there and you can see some of his case work, and he might even be able to refer you to someone in your neck of the woods, he also does Zoom consults.

Hey, thanks for reaching out.  I have a lot of similar quality-of-movement and compensation patterns built over time, and while I have found some things that are really helping me a ton, I'm absolutely open to having another look from someone trained in this kind of methodology.  Thanks for sharing and I'll shoot you a PM to get more info about your doctor.

I haven't been playing too much because my left hip hasn't held up to playing every week, but I'm still subbing now and again and have probably a dozen or so games in the set.  Overall it's a nice improvement over my old gear, but I thought I'd go over a few things I haven't been super pleased with.

Blocker

I've found the rebounds off the blocker to be remarkably inconsistent.  The reason, I think, is because the pad on the back of the hand is WAY too soft.  It's comfortable, but if the puck hits in the top maybe 40% of the board, the blocker will fulcrum over the top of my hand, rather than that energy being transmitted back to the puck to send the puck to the boards.  I can squeeze into the palm and flex my wrist as hard as I can and still easily move the blocker board back because any force into the top part of the board compresses that pad.  It leads to some shots coming off the blocker white hot if they hit in the dead center, then some others hit the top and will die just a few feet away.  It's honestly a huge frustration with the piece.  Maybe it's possible to have that pad replaced with something firmer?

Glove

I read in Cam Matwiv's VE8 review from way back when that he had trouble presenting this glove, and I have too, but I have found it's been for a different reason.  I actually didn't think I had an issue with it until I looked at some photos of me playing and noticed my glove was pointed as much toward the ground as toward the puck.  Cam had issue with the piece of aerospacer on the flap closest to the wrist, but I haven't found that to be a problem.  I've found I'm fighting the portion of strapping that goes over the wrist itself, the piece farthest up the wrist shown here backed by gray nash.  It's sewn into the glove on the right side, so no matter low loose you make the strap on that side, it's pretty tight on the wrist (shown loosened up below to give you an idea).  To get around that I'm running the strap on the left side of this piece pretty loose as well, which allows for a decent amount of mobility now but, in order to get enough flexion at the wrist, it's not possible to wear the glove very tight, which I prefer to do.  If both are cinched down, I can open up that flap closest to the chest pad entirely and still have trouble presenting the glove.  The current solution is to cinch down the velcro on the back of my hand fairly tight and basically run all of the other straps as loose as possible.  It works okay, but isn't really giving me the feel of control I want.  

Pads

My only complaint with the pads pertains to an option I chose to change up on these and that's the professor strap.  Occasionally these pads will fall down my leg and when they do, it's because the pad on the strap comes out from beneath the elastic.  I think for this design to be as effective as it should be, the elastic needs to exit the padding as close to the end as possible.  It's not a huge deal, I can easily access it during a break to push the strap back under the elastic and pull the pad back up, but I shouldn't have to do that IMO.

All in all, still a huge improvement from what I was wearing before, except I'd say blocker is a push.  It's more comfortable and well-balanced than the XLT was, but I'd guess I'd prefer a newer Lefevre blocker over this.  On the glove front, I have a significant desire to try the 580, because for as well as I catch with this glove, my stickhandling has gone to hell due to needing to turn my wrist another 15* to use the Turco grip.  I just can't get used to it and usually end up playing the puck old-school style with the tee pointed down.  When I don't it's flub city.  Closure on the glove still feels weird, too, there's no getting around the 590 60* break feeling much more natural on the hand than the 45* Vaughn break, but I catch better with this glove so eh.  I would give an XP glove a go too if it was free, but I won't be dropping the coin on one.  

22 minutes ago, ZeroGravitas said:

Shift holders are available at Monkey - https://www.goaliemonkey.com/new-items/true-goalie-accessories-shift-attack.html

$29.99 for a pair of holders is so cheap!

Wow!  Better order a pair before they figure it out.  

Gotta work on my glove position in a blocking butterfly.

59 minutes ago, bunnyman666 said:

Yeah- I was talking about the VH/Step holder. Graf actually has the tallest stock steel as far as cowlings go.

Do you mean the new 5500 holders are taller than the Vertexx holders?

31 minutes ago, ZeroGravitas said:

FWIW, True claims that the holder height and pitch are "in-line with the industry standard (Vertex)." Haven't used either the Vertexx or the Shift Attack so I can't say if that's true or not.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.  Maybe I'll just give the Vertexx holders and whirl and see how it goes.

16 minutes ago, bunnyman666 said:

That old VH/Step holder was super aggressive. I hated the super short blades, as well. It was literally a player holder, so it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Has anyone noticed how very few forwards used that holder? 

The short blades and smaller radius on the factory Graf steel are exactly what I like most about them.  I had some CCMs prior to going back to these and always felt like I was stuck in mud. I can basically skate like a forward in these skates and in fact have.  I played out a couple games in college (we sucked and needed a body) wearing my goalie skates.  

I've been e-mailing back and forth with Pure Hockey and I guess they don't have an ETA for when the Shift Attack goalie holders will be available separately.  I have no measurements, but from what Bones and Cam at the hockey shop have said in their reviews of the TF9s, the Shift holders seem sort of a middle ground between the Bauer and CCM holders, which sounds good to me.  Bones specifically talks about how the Shift holder doesn't have as much of a forward pitch as the old 2-piece design and is an easier transition from his one piece skates.  Until they're available, I'll probably continue to rock the cowlings.  

Well I went to my local Perani's to try on some Bauer and CCM skates just to get a feel for the holders, and I think I actually liked the extra forward pitch the Vertexx holders provide.  I found it easier to get low and forward and didn't feel unbalanced at all moving laterally.  I also like that the Bauer steel is a little shorter.  Anyone gone that route?

Not sure what model the CCM boot was, but it felt like hot garbage, the Bauer was the current mid-tier offering, the Elite model.  Both made me very much appreciate the 9035s.  

Anyone know where to source the new True holders? Wondering how they compare in terms of overall height and forward pitch to the CCM holders. Considering going with one of those two on my G9035s to get a little more purchase on the ice in my V9s. The boot is more workable than my old X28s, but it's nowhere near as flat as some others on the market today.

Also, what profile did you all start out with on the CCM runners? Since the Graf runners are shorter, I'm worried I'll have that "stuck in mud" feeling I had with my last CCM skates unless I go with a profile with a smaller radius.  Thanks!

A few shots from last night. Subbing for the maroon team and it was my first game back in 4 weeks. Definitely a little rusty, but I had fun nonetheless.

I've been rocking a VE8 Pro chestie for quite awhile and plenty of the dudes I play against can rip, but overall I find the level of protection to be adequate.  I have really only one complaint with regard to protection and that's right on the front of the shoulders.  It's not every time by any means, but I've had 2 or 3 really hard shots I can remember feeling like they somehow split the between the floater & cap there and ended up with some pretty nice bruises.  

20 hours ago, creasecollector said:

Very nice. Pro players are always fun to play against. Makes you appreciate the pro goalies even more so.

So true! Back when I was in high school some of the guys from my hometown's minor league team (Komets) did camps every summer. It was mostly younger kids who did them, though, so I got a lot of 1:1 work with the team's goalie at the time and took tons of shots from the players. Jim Logan broke the plastic in the palm of my glove and my hand was numb from that same shot for probably the next 2 hours. But man, did going back to practicing against my own teammates seem a whole lot easier.

1 hour ago, ilyazhito said:

That's good to know. I'm somewhat in between sizes (5'11, 17 inch ATK, 20 inch FTK). 

My FTK is the same 20" if I keep my shin upright, just FYI.  The 33" X28s fit me great, although I would have preferred a taller thigh rise.  My V9s are 33s as well.  

18 hours ago, ZeroGravitas said:

That's a really good price. If I am reading his post correctly, he is asking for $375 for the full set, which includes leg pads, catcher and blocker. The catcher is pro-level while everything else is the second price-point. He's asking only $100 for the leg pads.

Just to clarify, the blocker and catcher are both the pro-level XLT models, the pads are the second price point X28s.  

5 hours ago, ilyazhito said:

Makes sense. What payment methods do you take? 

PMed. 

10 hours ago, ilyazhito said:

I'd be interested in the gloves and pads. For reference, I'm in MD. How well are the gloves broken in? 

The blocker is a blocker, really.  It's comfortable to used but not a super tight fit on the hand as is the trend these days, unless you have much thicker hands than I do.  The glove closes really nicely, it's not stiff at all.