Puckstopper

Thanks Don Cherry!

Hold up..........This was a controversy? Somehow I missed this. NHL shooters should have been lining up to mock the league for this. Mites can shoot hard enough to make that piece of foam irrelevant.

Great answers above! I've been on 3mm steel for years now. It does chatter/sing much more than 4mm especially when new. Over time it settles in and the issue dies down. Whether that's the blade channel loosening up or something else I'm not sure. In my case at least, I doubt it was sharpening as I sharpened my skates myself on my last 2 new sets and I'm pretty anal. Also, I had the blades profiled right away and had the issue for a couple months afterwards. Speaking of profiling, one additional point: CCM skates sit at a neutral pitch, as do True one-piece customs. True 2 piece and all Bauer skates all are designed to put your weight over the balls of your feet. These aren't good or bad things, just a difference in design and preference. The good news is that there's an easy, relatively cheap fix. You can get your skate blades profiled with a forward pitch on them to duplicate the feel you're used to. I've mailed my goalie blades to NoIcing Sports in Delaware for years and been really happy with the results. I strongly recommend the triple radius they offer as I feel like it gives me plenty of blade on the ice to push, but removes just enough at the toe that my skating and pivots are improved significantly. Edit, forgot to mention K&K Skate also has given me great service on Prosharp Ellipse profiles on my forward skates. I've never tried them for goalie, but I can vouch for their professionalism, quality and customer service.

Personal preference I guess. IMHO, the Vaughn T3500 and it's descendants are the best catching gloves ever made. Warrior would rank towards the bottom of the list for me, with only Battram and Brian's below it, but I also think the much loved CCM 580 is total trash. So it's all about what tool works for you. My only point to the OP was to avoid ordering a Warrior glove blindly.

Sizing should be close. If you can get a deal, it's worth a try. I really loved the way the G/T2's I had played. Take a pass on the gloves. While they're the best Warrior has ever done (IMHO) they won't feel anything like Vaughn gloves, especially the catch glove.

Heaton Helite IIs were the same way. Heaton went back to leather buckles on the III's as I recall, probably due to pushback. Those H2's were the best old school pad I used.

More like GGSU lurker. Never had new stuff to post but creepily stalked everyone else.

You'd think buddy would be looking at a differently spec'd glove after that second one, but I doubt it.

Like I said earlier, there are other hobbies that cost less if this one doesn't work for you. Not trying to be insensative, but I'm not sure what you expect people who play the most expensive position in the game to do for you here... TBH, it kind of seems like you created an account just to bitch about stuff, between your interesting thread in the Reviews section and this one.

Ice is expensive to make and maintain. Ergo fewer rinks than needed in a lot of areas, and higher costs per hour of ice. On top of that, hockey is a niche activity, so everything for it is produced in smaller quantities than for other sports. Therefore everything from boards, to ice maintenance equipment to skate sharpeners, to the gear itself (and the dozens or hundreds of items I overlooked) are all more expensive to make. Not only are these things pricier to make, they cost more because Bauer will sell way fewer pairs of skates than Nike will sell football cleats in any given year, so they have to have a higher profit margin on a per item basis than other sports. Want hockey to cost less? Get more people involved. Which isn't easy because hockey costs so much, so I get that its a vicious circle. So, at the end of the day, if you want a cheaper hobby, try soccer or ultimate frisbee 'cause hockey probably won't ever get "cheap".

I like having one "hard" strap duplicating my strap running from knee to calf. I wear it loose enough I never feel it, but after seeing the video of the goalie who got his pad pulled off by a skater who got caught up in the thigh rise, I wanted to make sure mine stay put. It also makes for a convenient way to carry my pads, as everything else is nylon/elastic.

Agreed, beautiful gear other than the glove being for the wrong hands. Finally got my full Chris Osgood tribute set together, the bucket has only taken me a year to get ready to play in...

Thanks for the update. I'm getting ready to try this on my EF5 pads. Planning to clean with alcohol and use a baby shampoo/water mix and a squeegee to apply the film. Based on the thread, I'm planning to just do the knee/landing area for now and not bother with any of the inner gusset. I'm going to use cardboard to make a template and wrap the weave area of the knee block, while avoiding the nylon. Anything I'm missing?

Same suggestions as above. Call Peranis Columbus where I used to work and ask them to check in the skate shop. We used to stash old shit that probably wouldn't sell back there to avoid having ancient product cluttering up the shelves. Noicing might still have some as well. Ebay, Sideline, etc...

These sticks are absolute trash if you like to play the puck at all! My first Nike/Bauer composite stick had a similar curve and was atrociously heavy. I turned it into a street hockey stick instantly. Another loser was my Battram XLP glove. Not only was it a terrible break and a pancake style glove, but being two inches over old-spec NHL legal, it was heavy as hell and terribly balanced. In fairness, Scott B. did say he didn't recommend it if I was anything but a pure blocking style goalie, but I wanted to give that a try and ordered anyway. I used my Vaughn T3500 alongside those Battram pads and relegated the XLP to roller hockey duty. But the ultimate dogshit set I've ever used was my CCM EF4's. Loved the look, but hardly ever used them. They were a little big, heavier than the Warriors I ordered at the same time, had Speedskin on the soft sliding surface, so they stuck to bad ice like Velcro and the 590 break didn't work for me at ALL. The guy who bought them from me got a custom set that had been used less than 15 times for under a grand because I was so eager to get rid of them.

I'm a big advocate of the Vaughn T5500/CCM 600 break, and I found that the VE8 2 piece cuff glove was the closest to that break that I'd found in a long time. It was also a great glove for puckhandling. For me, the SLR gloves closed too far out in the fingers. The one piece Ve gloves felt like 590's (which makes sense, they're a 590 clone) and I agree with you that Brians and Warrior just aren't quite right for my preference. Bauer Ultrasonic felt a little weird at first, but is currently my favorite glove in terms of how it catches. For reference, these are the gloves I've tried in the last 15 years chasing the right feel: Brian's SubZero and Genetik II (lots of popouts with both if I didn't focus) CCM EF4 590 single T, Axis 600 double T, EF5 600 single T. (Couldn't catch COVID with the 590, the Axis 600 closes like crap but is the right break, the EF5 is pretty good) Bauer Ultrasonic (solid catching glove, easy to play the puck in, wish I'd ordered without extra foam in the fingers as it's hard to close) Vaughn Ve8 two piece cuff (best glove of the lot, wish I hadn't sold it to a buddy) Warrior G4 75 degree, GT2 70 degree, G5 60 degree (the G4 wasn't my cup of tea, the G5 felt a little better with the 60 degree liner, but the GT2 with the sewn in 70 degree break was the star of this group. If I'd ordered with a 60 degree, this would have been a contender for top 3) So after all of that, my 3 favs are the Ve8 that I moved on from, followed by Ultrasonic with the CCM EF5 600 coming in third. I may just have to bite the bullet and get an updated Vaughn T5500 at this point or just give up and quit chasing catch glove nirvana.

Pretty sure it was a hybrid of their two other lines done as a SMU for a couple of selected retailers (Source for Sports and GoalieMonkey at least, maybe a couple others).

This is the reason I've gone to single T's on CCM gloves. They just don't do the double T as well as Vaughn or Brians. Their design makes for a huge pocket, but as you noted, the closure is terrible.

I have both CCM EF5's and Bauer Hyperlites. I'm currently wearing the CCM set almost exclusively, as the softer landing area/knee block causes me less issues with the knee I had surgery on, but the Bauers definitely slide a little better and have noticeably hotter rebounds. I spec'd the Bauers with stiffness between an Ultrasonic and Hyperlite and feel like it's a good balance of flexibility and stiffness. One thing I did with the CCM pad to improve sliding was to have them built with weave instead of speedskin, and with that tweak they definitely are a better sliding pad than the EF4 that I used previously. A few random thoughts/concerns: If closure is an issue for you, Bauer may not be the best. They're very much a one size fits most pad, but I don't like not being able to add an extra inch to the top to help with closure. If you want to try to improve your sliding on the EF5's, search for 3M paint film mod on these forums. This is a relatively easy, inexpensive mod that many are swearing by. A sheet of lexan inserted in the face of your blocker may help with rebound hotness. These two mods would me much cheaper than a new set of pads.

Gross, that pretty much describes my feet. Between that and Bauer finally catching on to that fact that I don't work for Peranis anymore and rescinding my Bauer U discount, I'm going to stick with my Trues.

Not really a mod, but back in the day my first custom set was from Battram. I asked for a one-off graphic that didn't turn out quite like the drawing I sent (not his fault, I should have been clearer) an extra set of knee stacks (back when you laced in multiple sets to build your knee stack to the desired height) and a godawful XLP catch glove that was 2" bigger than old NHL legal. Not only did that thing weigh a ton, but I couldn't catch for beans with it. Bigger isn't always better.

Honestly, the manufacturer's size charts are usually pretty accurate as long as you are careful in your measurements. The biggest thing I had to learn was that close (+/- .25") was good enough, because unless you have a pro rep, you're not going to get your fit dialed in to where you hit the center of the stack (in teal below) every time. The goal is to land within the green zone I highlighted. If you're going to miss center, you'd rather miss towards the top of the pad as opposed to the bottom. If you miss low (like I was in the 35+1.5" EF4's I referenced earlier) it will be harder to seal the five hole and the pads feel clunky to move in. By going to a 34+2.5" EF5 I kept the same overall pad length to seal the five hole, but moved the knee stack down which prevented them from banging together while standing. More importantly, my weight was shifted towards the upper part of the knee stack, pushing the pad tips down into the ice while in the butterfly and improving seal slightly. TL:DR--> You're probably not getting a perfect fit, but being a hair too short is easier to deal with than a pad that's too big.

A softer boot is just more comfortable all around. It feels like the pad is working with you instead of against you. Firm, upright boot breaks like the old Reebok Premiere series of pads existed primarily as a way to avoid kicking rebounds right back into the slot, and they were effective at that. Over time though, the thought process evolved to recognize that you were going to make more saves and expend less energy with a pad that is moved easily than you were going to lose by kicking the occasional shot back into the slot.

One important thing to remember is that CCM sizing runs differently than other companies AND, to make things more complex, has changed somewhat in recent generations of the gear. As an example, I'm very comfortably a 35" in Brian's, Warrior and Bauer (well, a Large in Bauer, but it's the same difference...) but my 35" Eflex 4's were a catastrophe! Way to big to move easily in, I landed in the wrong part of the knee cradle, just all around bad from a sizing perspective. I dropped to 34" for Axis and EF5 and am much happier with the fit. One additional point with CCM: Avoid Speedskin like the plague! My EF4's had it, my subsequent sets have both had weave sliding surfaces. The difference in ease of sliding and consistency over time is night and day with weave. Speedskin starts off great, but starts to feel "sticky" very quickly. Given where you're coming from, I'd be looking at senior/mid pricepoint leg pads in addition to pro level stuff. Current senior level stuff is every bit as good as the pro gear of yesteryear, and will sting your wallet a LOT less if you do find that you struggle with the transition from V2--> wherever this journey takes you. I doubt that will be the case, as I find modern pads very easy to play in compared to my older stuff, but others have had different feelings. Edit: For a soft boot feel, Bauer, Warrior, and Brians are all softer than CCM as well, although the boot flex and shape on my EF5 was an improvement over previous CCM lines I used/demo'd.