raucebyalien

Those retro RGT's look ridiculously good for senior pads! Fellow goalie on one of my teams has senior G2's and they essentially look like pro pads too - a long way from my 2010 senior V3's which were like crumbling bags of loose foam after a couple of years!

Surprised this hasn't shown up yet - Brians and GGN posted a mock up of the new Optik C/A on twitter. Looks like they're still going with the hinged belly flap - big fan of this on G-netik 2 C/A.

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!

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!
 

Shamelessly stolen from KHL_goalie on instagram - Rask in a P1 with extra external forearm protection:

Might be completely wrong here, but they look like normal G-netik arms but with SZ elbow blocks - basing this mainly on that they have the separate external shield (yellow bits) like my G-netik does??

Thanks all, my other team is in Ducks colours but we haven't had a home game for over a year now

One of my friends had a great looking set that matched the green jerseys for that team perfectly (sure he won't mind me posting!):

One of the teams I play for is lucky to have a very good photographer turn up to most home games:

16 hours ago, mik said:

It is interesting to me to hear that. I use NXG C&A against players that can shoot realy hard and no problems with arms yet (but plastic elbow cups are bad). Can you post me photo of specific area?

Sure - I've marked one of the stock photos, the yellow arrows are where it feels like its mainly plastic and not much foam, meaning all the impact is transferred to the arm. the red arrow is one of the areas on the side where i'm concerned there's little to no protection at all. so far I've only been clipped in this area, but don't look forward taking a heavy shot there!

Its a shame because I otherwise like the unit and before I bought it I saw it had a ton of good reviews..but I'll probably have to beef it up or move it on.