Starting over again

I knew breaking in the new pads would take time and effort, but what I didn't count on was feeling like I had to learn everything all over again. Yes, the pads are stiff. But that's not the biggest problem. Its the fact that they are so incredibly different from my old ones in several important ways. Needless to say, even though I have a game tomorrow night, I will not be using them there. I have several more clinics and open hockey sessions to go before I'm comfortable using them in a game that counts.

I should have realized what I was in for when I ambled into the rink, and when I passed by Coach Johnson he asked "new pads?" and responded to my affirmation with "good luck". I stepped onto the ice and was greeted by Coach Mark (who runs the clinics, and is an excellent coach), who asked the same question. When I said yes, he asked if this was my first time using them, and when I nodded my masked head he quipped "have fun". Oh boy.

My biggest problems, aside from feeling like my legs were encased in concrete, lie in three areas;

1. The height of the pads. Yeah... I was wondering what that whole "plus 1 sizing" system is that Vaughn advertises, and I found it out. The new pads are the same size from ankle to knee as my old ones, but they have significantly more height at the top. This causes the tops to crash together as I drop into my butterfly, which slows me down. Not to mention its pretty awkward [insert awkward turtle here].

2. The thickness of the knee stacks. For non-goalie-geeks: knee stacks are the square-ish pieces of padding that are strapped to the area of the pad you land on when you drop into your butterfly. Also referred to sometimes as "landing gear". There's a reason for this; it's the only thing separating your knee from a very hard sheet of ice. Knees take a beating in goaltending just by nature of the butterfly/hybrid style, but they take even more of a beating when there's only about a half inch of foam between them and the ice they're repeatedly being slammed into. That half inch of foam (on my old pads) became indented from my knee, so the foam was actually crushed down to about a quarter inch thickness. On my new pads... I have FOUR knee stacks. I haven't measured it but it's got to be a good 5 inches of foam, all velcroed together, between my knee and the ice. Sweet. Well, "sweet" once I get used to them. Right now they make me extremely clumsy because I have to stand/crouch/skate ... basically everything... with my legs farther apart than I'm used to. Between this and the height on the pads, my stance has to change. Getting used to a new stance is going to take a lot of patience and time. Imagine a batter having to stand a new way in order to hit a ball. Yeah. Fun.

3. Leather inside edges as opposed to fabric. Again "Sweet". Once I get used to them anyway. The reason I was having so much trouble doing butterfly slides and moving laterally while down on the ice was because my pads were actually sticking to the ice, due to the fabric stuff that was on the edge making contact with the ice. It wasn't just weak legs, as I thought. Today in clinic I was sliding all over the place- farther than I intended. I have to get that under control and work on integrating lateral slides into my arsenal of save tactics. But once I do.... man is that ever going to be awesome.

So... all good stuff. But stuff that's going to take a lot of adjusting. And hopefully during that period of adjustments I'll stop a decent amount of pucks and get some scuff marks on those puppies, because as much as mostly-white pads are "hockey camouflage", no goalie wants to take to the ice in a game without so much as a mark on his or her pads.