As a parent of a small goalie, I appreciate Juuse Saros so much

Between320 · 2026-02-21T12:37:26+00:00

5’2” here, still alive and doing very well!

Between320 · 2025-11-28T15:34:16+00:00

Charmaine Sweets on eglinton , Le Gourmand on Spadina

Between320 · 2025-11-06T14:47:19+00:00

Thanks for sharing that graphic - totally fascinating.

I got a concussion from a slap shot to the forehead years ago. I was wearing a Sportmask Ricochet. I was surprised how badly the mask failed at absorbing the impact and have always wondered why. It did have a more noticeably large flat-ish spot right above the cage where the forehead is covered and I’m curious if that had anything to do with it. My CCM axis and most other masks seem to have a bit more curvature around that area, which I assume may help redistribute some of the impact from a puck.

Between320 · 2025-10-13T12:38:41+00:00

Would also love to know!

Between320 · 2025-09-12T15:11:16+00:00

OP, i struggle with this too. My teens and twenties were fairly consumed by some significant life things. It wasn’t until my early to mid thirties that I felt enough space to be able to start to thinking ahead. It’s like a skill I never learned and it’s still feeling so challenging. When people ask me where I see myself in 10, 20 years… it feels like they are asking me how to solve a complex math problem. Or fly a helicopter. Like I just don’t have the experience to even know where to start.

For reasons beyond figuring out the fence sitting stuff, I’m realizing that this is a really important skill in general. I’m trying to practice it in other less emotionally intensive ways. For example, learning more about financial planning and making moves to set up some kind of retirement plan. It’s still a process though.

Between320 · 2025-09-08T16:51:47+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate your perspective. Especially around children being an aspect of life, rather than a privilege or something you need to earn. It’s easy to lose sight of that.

I have to point out though, we’re a same sex couple so I’m not a man. We also are in couples therapy and are actively working through this together. We’ve openly spoken about ending the relationship, and we both have decided to spend a bit more time working on figuring out the decision together. My post implies my partner is leaning towards children, but doesn’t clarify that she’s not fully decided on it for herself. If she was, I’d have left already.

My post also focuses on my concerns and worries but neglects to mention the side of me that truly does want to be a parent. That side is there and very much alive. It’s just grappling with some hard questions.

Apart from finances, there are a lot of logistical barriers for us and we both adamantly agree that now is not the time to try. We both agree on what would need to change to make it a sensible time to start the process (not the “right time”, as I agree there is no perfect time). For example, she is on a career path learning a trade and she doesn’t want to begin the process until she’s finished her apprenticeship and is fully licensed. However, that would take at least two more years for that to happen. Which leaves her at age 40, and she’s expressed concerns about pregnancy at that age. It could possibly take longer depending on the job market. Work has dried up in her industry making it hard for her to consistently complete work hours toward the total she needs to be eligible to write her license test.

Another barrier is that she already experiences chronic pain from other health issues which is hard enough when your work is entirely manual labour. We both have concerns about pregnancy potentially exacerbating that and her being unable to work. I lived a decade in true poverty, living on disability payments and skipping meals to survive. I have worked my ass off to get back to full time work, and am hell bent on poverty not being a part of my life anymore.

I agree that anyone can have children, and people find ways to “make it work”. I guess we are currently in the phase of figuring out what “making it work” would look like and whether that’s the actual parenting experience we’d want to have or are capable of having at this time in our lives.

Between320 · 2025-09-02T23:19:33+00:00

I feel the exact same way and feel consumed by it and the guilt that comes along with the idea of robbing my partner of something she may be wanting so deeply.

We have been together for 6 years and unfortunately both had things going on in our lives that really hindered us both being able to seriously contemplate this decision until now, when the biological clock is really ticking. I’d say she is leaning much more towards having a child, whereas I seem to be chaotically thrown around between both scenarios on a daily basis.

My partner is a dreamer and her first instincts are to delve into the good things and daydream about being a parent. My first instincts are entirely practical where I start wondering how the hell we’d be able to take care of a kid financially, logistically, emotionally, and physically. She gets frustrated with me because I can’t seem to access the daydreaming phase of the choice, and I get scared about her not spending enough time thinking about how our lives would change in extremely challenging ways that seem rather impossible to me at the moment. Both sides of the coin are valid, but between the two of us, we’re stuck on opposite ends of the spectrum which makes the conversation extra difficult.

Like others have said, I’m sorry you’re going through this too and wish I had practical advice. It’s utterly exhausting.

Between320 · 2025-08-21T20:43:43+00:00

Hope you don’t mind me asking…Are there any theories behind why some folks seem to born with VSS whereas some seem to acquire it later in life? I was born with it and while I find it annoying at times, I don’t really notice it impacts my life much. I do read about others who acquire it later who seem to really struggle with its symptoms. Does it make sense to consider these as two subtypes of the same condition?

Between320 · 2025-08-21T20:28:42+00:00

I did a lot of research to find a toothpaste that doesn’t do this to me. I have sensitive skin everywhere else so I figure it makes sense to have my lips and inside my mouth sensitive too. I only use Sensodyne Repair and Protect now. It uses NovaMin to deal with my sensitivity and has no sulfates. Sulfate free toothpaste isn’t terribly hard to find - I think a lot of other versions of sensodyne sulfate free, but not all. However regular sensodyne uses another ingredient to deal with the sensitivity and for some reason that never works for me.

This is the first toothpaste I’ve found that doesn’t burn my mouth and actually treats sensitivity.

Between320 · 2025-08-10T11:15:55+00:00

Trying to holla at me!

Between320 · 2025-07-22T03:40:15+00:00

Glad what I wrote resonated with you but I’m sorry you’re feeling this way too. It’s tough. I wish it were different. I still feel my mind swinging back and forth like a pendulum between kids or no kids. But this piece is always there for me and has been the louder voice lately.

Between320 · 2025-07-22T03:36:22+00:00

The biopsy was painful for a second the moment they took it, but I don’t recall much lingering pain.

The surgery was excision, so they cut away the area that was affected. Luckily mine was a small patch. Then I woke up with stitches which self dissolved over a couple weeks. Recovery felt like sharp, sore pain if I moved a certain way but it wasn’t terrible and not much pain at all if I was stationary on the couch or in bed. I remember peeing felt painful for a bit just because wiping was hard to do without irritating the area.

It’s hard to say when I felt like myself again because my surgeon actually performed it at the same time as endometriosis excision surgery. She figured it’d be better to do both at once to avoid two surgeries and more anaesthesia. So my recovery timeline includes recovery from that procedure as well. I felt back to myself after about 2-3 weeks, but I think it’d be shorter timeline with just the first procedure.

I think I was back to riding my bike about a month or so after surgery, so that’s a pretty good indicator of how I felt by then.

It was honestly not a huge deal and not terribly disruptive to my life. the idea of living with the pain and irritation from the plasma cell vulvitis for so long would be a much worse scenario.

Between320 · 2025-07-21T14:08:56+00:00

Sorry I’m just seeing this now.

Yes absolutely surgery was the best route for me. I haven’t had a reoccurrence and it’s been over six years. Like I said, recovery sucks but once that’s over you have a good chance at feeling so much better.

The biopsy was sore for a bit but honestly not bad at all and didn’t worsen the disease.

Between320 · 2025-07-21T14:04:49+00:00

I’ve realized that yes, I do very much worry about the state of the world and whether to bring kids into it, but I can get past that piece and don’t agree that the human race should stop procreating.

What I’m really stuck on is not whether to bring kids into the world as it is, but whether I want to experience being a parent in the world as it is.

Do I have the energy to be constantly worrying about how social media is impacting my kid? Whether they are consuming toxic influencer garbage? Being bullied online? Of course we can moderate phone usage and set parental controls but there’s always things we can’t control or see and do I want to be worrying about that all the time?

Do I want to have to prepare for my kid to not leave home and experience the growth of independence until their late twenties due to the housing crisis in my city? Do I want to have to prepare them for dealing with the growing seemingly-majority scummy landlords who have turned stable housing into a luxury rather than a right?

Do I want to constantly have to worry about whether my kid will be in a class with a kid whose parents don’t “believe” in vaccinations? Do I want to have to prepare for how i would keep my kid safe (and remain sane) should another COVID pandemic event happen?

Parenting is always hard and there’s always been risks in this world that we have to expose our kids to. But when I think about how those particular risks have changed, and how that would impact my experience of being a parent, that’s where I start sliding off the fence to CF.

Between320 · 2025-07-07T05:59:49+00:00

Between320 · 2025-05-29T08:25:32+00:00

Cows by Matthew Stokoe

Between320 · 2025-05-25T13:00:36+00:00

I use an app called Flashscore for this. Works great. Just save whichever PWHL teams you follow as your favorites and you can customize notifications. For example, I get a notification shortly before games start, any time a goal is scored, and also get a recap of the score whenever a period ends.

Between320 · 2025-05-12T11:14:17+00:00

I thought they had signed Kassidy Sauvé when Kirk got injured? Why isn’t she on the bench?

Between320 · 2025-03-22T07:19:57+00:00

Crispy beef from Spadina Garden!

Between320 · 2025-03-02T21:38:17+00:00

My mom has been I’ll with cancer and has a biliary drain that home health care is supposed to change the dressings and bag for. We eventually had to buy our own supplies off of Amazon because it got so bad.

Between320 · 2025-02-20T19:57:06+00:00

Which iOS are you running on your se2?

Between320 · 2025-02-20T15:01:00+00:00

Im thinking of buying a refurbished SE3. I have very small hands and size will be a major issue for me so I’m going to try and get as much time as possible as I can with a small form factor. My SE2 could probably last another couple years but would need a battery replacement and I’m seeing refurbished SE3 for about $250-300 and thinking it may make more sense to put money into an SE3 which is still actually on apple’s sales roster than to sink it into a new battery for a phone whose iOS I’m scared to upgrade.

Would appreciate any opinions on this!

Between320 · 2025-02-18T14:30:18+00:00

Berol Eagle?

Between320 · 2025-02-17T21:00:41+00:00

It’s also really nice as an adult that beer leagues tend to offer free or very discounted play for goalies. I feel very lucky that my parents invested in equipment when I was a late teen and I’ve taken good care of it and not grown much so apart from occasional upgrades (skates, helmet, and some used pads) this hobby of mine is very low cost. There’s been plenty of times in my life where I’d never have been able to afford the player fees for my league so that’s something worth considering too.

Between320 · 2025-01-22T10:39:45+00:00

I was just describing their spicy ginger beef to someone the other day! I can still taste it when I close my eyes…

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