How tight to strap goalie pads

This is a sports related blog, but it doesn't deal with a sport but rather equipment in one. Therefor it doesn't go in my ticker.

I wanted to cover goalie pads for a little bit. I play goalie myself in beer league. My experience goes as high as college club hockey. Over the year's I've gotten older and more eager to find out what works best. I've often fallen into the one size fit's all category and kept my pads one way for a really long time.

For instance my pad length now. Currently I have goalie pads that use an ankle strap and two calf straps. I also have a calf buckle. Going from bottom to top I use 5, 5, 3 on Brian's goalie pads. That's kinda tight but still allows for rotation. The biggest reason I made my switch to this tension about 2 years ago was that my pads were turning all on their own. I'd have my leg pointed straight out and the pad would go to the left or right of my knee.

Previously I used a 2, 2, 1 set up. This was super loose. I even put my ankle strap through the middle skate cowling to have even more slack. I really liked this set up and kept it for about 3 years. For the 5 years that I've had my pads I've only used 2 settings.

Now I think I'm ready to go back to the 2,2,1 set up and here is why: The tighter I make these pads, the juicier the rebounds get. I can give a great bounce and set up the next shooter by using my tight settings. With the 2,2,1 setup I often have separation between my shin and the pad. This allows the puck to literally drop dead in front of me. FYI - you should always gauge how you want to play the puck on the team in front of you.

I say this because most beer leagues offer very bad defenses. It's the nature of the way adult leagues are played. Most people want to score, and it goes for both sides. Defense is often saved for the slowest people because they don't have the ability to score.


This is why I am switching back to a loose setting. I've found that in the past season of adult league, my team has become very weak on defense. Often allowing 3 on 1 and even a 4 on 0. When you get these kinds of problems coming your way, or the opponent is shooting low on you the worst thing possible is to give away a rebound. Step 1 is to not have a pad that automatically kicks pucks 50 feet away. You have no control that far away. If you have that kind of pad, you should have a defense fast enough to pick up your rebounds and clear for you. I do not have this. I also am pretty bad at mopping up sloppy shots. These turn into nasty situations in front of the net and my score board stats show it.

I don't have the puck to give up, but I wanted to share my sizing to help a little bit more.