Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

Revisiting the goalie equipment issue

ERIC DUHATSCHEK

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 1:41 PM EDT 30/04/08

League, NHLPA take another stab at giving players more net to shoot at ...Read the full article

This conversation is closed

  1. Trilly B from Canada writes: They should have Ron and Don on the panel to show how goalies wearing their pads on the wrong legs are able to stop five-hole shots easier.
  2. David Parkinson from CalgaryVancouverTorontoLondon, writes: Eric is absolutely right - even with smaller equipment, goalies are so much more sound technically than they were 20 years ago, it's not going to make that much difference. They skate better, they handle the puck better, they square to the puck better, they play the angles better. And they're simply bigger - they cover more net. With pads designed for the butterfly, they can cover off the entire bottom third of the net pretty easily. You can shrink the size of the pads, but you can't reverse technology - lighter equipment that's designed to move better with your body and deflect rebounds into the corners. You could make technical changes, but to be fair, you'd have to then tell shooters they have to go back to wood sticks. You also can't do anything about the size, strength, physical stamina and technical ability of skaters, which has at least as much to do with the decline in scoring as the size of goalie equipment - maybe more. There's just not as much open space out there. The NHL has tried cutting down on obstruction, but all that has done is increase the number of penalties while doing little or nothing to open up the game. (The way they choose to enforce these initiatives is bizarre and maddeningly inconsistent, which may also be part of the problem, but that's another debate.) They've already tried mandating smaller goalie equipment and restricting puck-handling by goalies, and that, too has done nothing. And the salary cap might actually be working against efforts to generate more goals, by making it difficult for teams to go out and hire more than a couple of top-notch scorers. You want to increase scoring? Shrink the league down to 20 or so teams. Marginal, defence-only players would be forced out of hockey. Every team would have more skill players on its roster. The NHL will never do that. But short of bigger nets - an unpalatable solution for anyone who respects the integrity of the sport - it may be the only realistic solution.
  3. Remain Nameless from Canada writes:
    There was an interesting story in the Ottawa Citizen at the beginning of the playoffs: A vision expert said that Yellow was the easiest colour to see, and therefore made an ideal target for shooters. As a result, Penguins' goalie changed from yellow pads to white pads.

    If this theory is correct, perhaps one element of a solution would be to paint the nets yellow thereby allowing the shooters to better see where the goalie ain't.

    Maybe the yellow stripe around the bottom of the boards is one of the reasons so many shooters miss the net!

Comments are closed

Thanks for your interest in commenting on this article, however we are no longer accepting submissions. If you would like, you may send a letter to the editor.

Report an abusive comment to our editorial staff

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Back to top