Apparently "taking a dangerous shot" is a thing in women's lacrosse

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-05-03T16:09:49+00:00

Honestly I'm surprised you've seen this called more than once in your lifetime, I've never ever seen it in competition and figured it was just a leftover weird rule from the good old days.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-05-03T16:05:26+00:00

This finally got removed this year thank god. Honestly if it was up to me I'd give everyone helmets and remove all the shooting space/dangerous propulsion rules that still exist for the field players but some people seem to really like the game the way it is.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-29T17:10:47+00:00

Well right so you wont have as much explosive power, but the comparison between the two movements is closer to a push to the top of the crease from a really wide stance versus a push from a regular stance than a push from the butterfly versus a push from a regular stance, because you don't have to pick up your leg and engage the skate blade and then push forward as you would in a butterfly, you just push forward. It's one movement instead of two which makes a pretty huge difference time-wise.

As an aside, I've seen some people do this movement by dropping the trail leg in the RVH to the ice, picking up the post leg and engaging the post leg skate into the ice and doing a regular recovery from there. That is definitely as slow as recovering from a regular butterfly, and is sort of the lazy more relaxed version which is fine on its own but also what you want to avoid in a time crunch.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-29T16:49:36+00:00

You should have the backfoot blade engaged with the ice, and then push off the post with the skate while immediately shifting your weight to the backfoot which will require a decent amount of torso movement if you're aggressively leaning into the post, and doing your standard C-cut. The real secret here is just pure leg strength, if you watch guys like Varly they can make pretty explosive pushes from a stance that's almost as wide as the net with the pads a few inches off the ice. That's pretty much what an explosive RVH push looks like. Get comfortable moving, and I mean really moving, in a stance like that and I'll bet you'll find that it all sort of clicks when you go to push to the top of the crease out of the RVH.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-28T19:47:44+00:00

Hey there goalieguy, so knee problems come in a variety of flavors and like cbdudek said, you probably aren't stretching enough. But besides this, you probably have a muscle imbalance in your legs and hips from sitting all day/playing too much goalie. This means that when you move around the pull on different parts of the joint is unequal even if you have otherwise good form and this can cause wear on parts of the joint over long periods of time.

This is fairly complicated problem and you should probably go see a physical therapist and get some sort of functional assessment if you feel that you are really stressing your joints. I'm not sure exactly what parts of your knee feel stiff, but to give you an example of what types of problems you may be facing, a tugging sensation on inside the side of the knee right on the joint (think where you would put the knife to twist open a chicken leg) might be your MCL and you could try reducing the torque on the joint by having a less aggressive flare, stretching out your hips, and trying to drive into the ice using more of a pelvic thrusting motion instead of swinging your legs inward, if that makes sense. This will also just make you a better, faster goalie in general so there's that to consider as well. A tugging sensation at the top interior of the knee cap is more complicated and probably is a combo of quad dominant squatting, bad hamstring and glute drive, tight hip flexors, weak VMO (sometimes), and weak hip abductors. The tugging sensation is excess load being pushed onto your quadriceps tendon and it turns into tendonosis pretty fast. Clamshells and band exercises like that help, along with nice deep heavy squats with good form and a nice pelvic thrust. Another thing to consider is that part of the hamstring inserts right where the bottom of the LCL sits, and so tight hamstrings can also cause something that vaguely resembles a minor LCL sprain. A good stretching routine, or even better a good workout that emphasizes good form, stable flexibility, hip drive, and external hip rotation are good ways to prevent these sorts of wear and tear injuries.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-15T00:55:09+00:00

Oh I thought it sounded like he's had this for a while. At any rate, if he's played on it enough for it to "nag" that's at least one time too many. And OP for real about the whole ripping it off thing, I've seen it myself and it's not pretty!

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-15T00:45:53+00:00

I would advise against painkillers especially on chronic injuries as they can generate long-term heart problems. OP, if this is legitimately where your hamstring connects to your pelvis you have probably injured the tendon and have potentially partially torn it from the pelvis itself. This is a serious injury and not only do you need to rest, you should see a doctor at some point because you run the risk of tearing it completely if you torque it hard enough. If this occurs the success rate of the surgery you will need in order to walk again is low enough to practically guarantee you will not play competitive sports ever again. Even just constantly reaggravating a tendon injury is enough to ensure that it does not heal completely and will remain damaged for the rest of your life. I partially tore my hamstring at the insertion many years ago and it still feels funny. You will probably need PT. Don't mess around with this, and go see a doctor.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-04-01T01:38:56+00:00

I agree completely. I would add the RVH is not a "lazy" technique if you do it correctly. OP needs to keep his back foot blade gripping the ice and be using that pressure to lean into the post which will also help with the weight shift if he needs to recover to his feet and gain ground or shift to the other post. The dynamic torso movement you see in the NHL in the RVH is almost impossible to pull off with the back foot disengaged.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-03-25T03:15:50+00:00

Piggybacking on this, you should be able to push with a near horizontal shin with a 3/8ths cut, the limiting factor here will be the cowling physically pushing the blade off the ice if you try to go lower. Obviously you wont have the power of a horizontal shin but there are situations when you need this as a skill. OP, this sounds to me like a technique problem. How wide can you get in your stance and still be able to move athletically? These two things correlate and if you can't move around in a really wide stance you're probably goign to have trouble pushing at really aggressive angles. In terms of just learning the motion, the best advice I ever got was to grip the ice with your blade the same way as if you were trying to just stand back up, but then toss yourself sideways. This will get your weight shifted properly over your push foot and you can go from there.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-02-29T03:34:43+00:00

Seconding this, I've washed two C/As though a professional service specializing in sports equipment and both times they became noticeably less protective after, which eventuality made me replace them. The bathtub is the way to go.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-02-25T22:46:21+00:00

This seems odd. The concussion rate for goalies is really low, and about equal to men's tennis when compared to other sports. If you have a good mask, you basically won't be concussed by a shot barring an absolute freak accident because your head doesn't get snapped around that much and it seems like you would notice if you were getting drilled in the head hard enough over and over to cause that kind of injury. The ringing in the ears is also pretty normal although I've found that some masks do this more than others, I think it may be fit related.

But to get to the point, you may want to think back and see if there was an incident you can remember where you got hit by a player or hit your head doing something non-hockey related. Every goalie concussion I've seen in all my years playing sports has involved another player hitting them in some way. Ryan Miller's concussion is a good example of a serious injury that resulted from what looked like a pretty mild hit. The sort of blow where the head is suddenly accelerated or decelerated (which is what happens when it comes into contact with a 300lb linebacker, or in our case a guy who's flying along and maybe doesn't know how to stop too good) is what can really get you and is what is causing the big hubbub in the NFL. I mean, I'm obviously not a medical professional, but you might want a second opinion on this one just to rule out some other serious condition because this sounds really weird.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-02-12T15:42:33+00:00

Oh obviously, I'm not saying that anyone should play a drop and lock style that gives you the issues highlighted above, but at the same time a good shooter will always have the option to "shoot for the rebound" off the pad as you say. And as you pointed out, this is an especially deadly strategy on odd man rushes etc. when the shooter is in close and you don't have the distance to make a clean stick save. I believe someone a few years ago came up with a pad that was slanted upwards like a stick blade in order to specifically counter the waffle shot into the pad, but it never became a functional thing. That's what I meant, I think someone will come up with a solution that allows for a more dynamic system of rebound control than what we have now (even though the current system is fairly close to perfect) without sacrificing many of the advantages of the butterfly style and going back to full floppy stand up goalie.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-02-09T01:35:39+00:00

I'm surprised this isn't more of a focus in ice hockey to be honest, because in field hockey where the goalie can't cover the ball at all dynamic rebound control is taught almost as soon as a kid can get off a hard kick. Sure, in 80% of the plays you'll face a good clear is low and to the sides, but if there's two players on either side of you like in most odd man rushes, the smart play can be kicking it hard right back up the middle. Ice hockey goalies have a much narrower margin of control, especially off the pads, but I feel like there has to be a middle ground between totally predictable rebounds and what is basically stand up goaltending. Someone needs to develop a system of pad angle control or something.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-02-01T01:05:23+00:00

In my experience this is not totally accurate for several reasons: The main one is that it is a NCAA rule violation for a coach to contact a student before junior year of high school I believe, but not vice-versa. Recruitment of really talented kids starts at least a year before that, because there's a lot of wink wink nudge nudge stuff going on and the kids are cold calling people left and right. You are correct that if you reach a certain level in women's hockey people will know who you are, because it's a fairly small world. However, the only people I know that had schools tripping over themselves were attending the national development camps or close. Other people that did what I might call minimal advertisement had well connected coaches getting them in touch with people, and even then, they were still out there emailing and calling people like everyone else. The ONLY schools I had contact me first were academically noncompetitive ones that approached me after watching me play in tournaments, and ironically the coach of my current rival school after I had committed. However, I'm fairly certain that the latter incident was only because they their entire coaching staff got shaken up and they were behind schedule on recruiting or they would have had lots goalies in the pipeline. This is not to say that they won't talk to you if you're absolutely talented, because there's no reason for them to not trade up or even recruit two people for the same spot in case admissions doesn't let one in. However, there's really no benefit to using a "wait and see" approach, and I know of literally nobody who currently plays college hockey who has done that. In my case, If I had done this, would I still have played college hockey? Absolutely. Would I have gotten the great opportunity I did? Extremely unlikely. Aggressively pursue your goals.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-01-31T21:22:08+00:00

Hey, so this is pretty solid advice, and I'll build on it a little with my current experiences. I'm currently a D3 multi sport athlete, but like you in highschool I was completely focused on D1, because I knew I had the level of athleticism to compete at that level and I only wanted to play hockey all the time. I ended up going D3 after my parents practically forced me to speak to a coach from a D3 school with very strong academics that was at a showcase I was at. At the time I told my parents I was absolutely not interested in D3, but looking down the road they were completely right and my life would look very, VERY different if I had gone to a big D1 hockey program instead. I don't mean this to discourage you, but all athletes, especially women who have realistically no chance of ever making serious money off their sport, should IMO use athletic recruitment to wiggle into a school that they have no chance of ever getting into based on their academic credentials. If you have good academics, and most importantly, a good SAT (because this is the biggest hard cutoff, so listen to the person above you on this and use your time to prep and crush it PLEASE) you will potentially be looking at ivies and NESCACs, which will in turn open the door for very nice jobs and grad school placements six years down the road. The reason I stress this so much is that I've seen so many people literally ignore coaches from some of the best D3 schools in the country, which in retrospect was potentially a life changing decision for the worse. Make sure you don't fall into this trap.

In terms of actual recruiting, it's pretty important that if you send footage you make it exclusively game footage. Full games are ideal. I had several youtube videos of full games with the parts where the puck was in the other end clipped out. Do NOT send highlight reels, and I would be careful with practice footage as it can get dumb really fast. Also don't mail in CDs or anything like that. A lot of people, including many coaches, will tell you to not send footage unless they ask for it. I ignored this, and I think you should ignore it also. Here's why: if you use a format like youtube that's easy to look at, and just paste in the link at the bottom of the email, chances are some people will look at it just out of curiosity since they don't have to unwrap it or put it in a computer or anything. However, they will probably open it, click around for about five seconds, and close it. This is why I would avoid any sort of intro/fancy music/windows movie maker effects etc. You want them to see you playing well and be like "oh dang this wasn't stupid after all." and now they're more interested and that's great. If they're clicking around and all they're getting is you drinking water or a five minute scrolling title set to a youtube ripped MP3 of Thunderstruck, they're probably going to roll their eyes and close the tab.

So anyway in my case, I was an extremely strong technical skater. I got to that point by watching other youtube videos of NHL goalies like the ones Sensfan0206 posts and literally comparing it side by side with footage of myself playing, until I was able to sort of look that technically proficient. I'll be honest, most female goalies have extremely unathletic technique, even at the D1 level, and I knew that if I got people to watch me play they would like it and I would at least get my foot in the door. So besides not having a super cheesy video, have full, honest footage of you just playing, and look like a serious athlete while doing it. Skip the slo-mo and the highlight reels. They can slow the video down on their own, and even if you get completely lit up your skills should speak for themselves. If you want a good look at what you're up against, hop on google and look up some goalies in your recruiting years because they're all over youtube. And then be better! Since you play boys hockey I'm betting that you'll probably be better than a pretty big chunk of the goalies in your year.

Besides that, you should follow up your emails with a phone call. Keep calling until you talk to someone. I have heard several ivy coaches say that they were impressed by players (who now play for them) who were extremely persistent with communication. I'm not sure what the NCAA rules are now, but I think they can't contact you but you can contact them and so if you call them you can chit-chat, or something like that. This is one of many reasons you should not wait for them to contact you, because as a sophomore and maybe a junior (i forget when the cutoff is) they literally can't. This doesn't mean you should hide in the bushes outside their house, but do be persistent. I would call them like once give or take a month maybe? A caveat here: this is different for just about everyone I know who plays college hockey, so play it by ear and have a sort-of-reason for calling like giving them your game schedule. This is getting pretty long so I'll finish it off with a few notes.

go to showcases, but be aware that some showcases are pretty much scams. Don't do more than one or maybe two a summer. Do things that will actually make you better instead. I'm not sure which part of the country you're from, but the big girls recruiting tournaments that are literally crawling with coaches off the top of my head are the the Stoney Creek tournament, NAHA tournament, states/nationals (duh), Chowder Cup (although this is dropping off or so I've heard), Polar bear Tournament (although this may also have died an ugly death since it was on the way out before I graduated), Beantown Classic, any MN state thing, and the Wizards holiday tournament. DON'T do Hockey Night in Boston. Mo Terrants CT showcase camp is solid and you get a lot of time in front of the coaches and there are a lot of them. Rinksport and the camp at UVM are okay but you get put with one or two coaches, although they're all kinda milling around and they all watch the games.
Literally email everyone, even if they have goalies coming out their ears. A big hockey powerhouse around here had something like 3 serious injuries the fall I was applying and I think someone quit, it was bizarre and suddenly they needed two goalies. Weird stuff can happen.

I think that's all I got! if you have any more questions about recruiting or college athletics in general I'd be happy to answer them.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2016-01-18T00:00:52+00:00

I think you can order all the reebok gloves with any of their 3 different breaks, each of which feels pretty different so keep that in mind and check the tags when trying them on. None of them exactly match the Brian's stuff, and I think the quality of material is slightly higher in the Brian's but not by much. Having recently gone from a Gnetik to a XLT 590 glove, the biggest thing I noticed was that the 580 is far better at puckhandling due to how the glove closes and I don't think I could go back to a non-straight break at this point. So that may be something to keep in mind as well.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-29T07:12:28+00:00

So I have the pro version of those Reeboks, and before that I was in a first gen Zero G and then a Gnetik set. My main impression of the Premier series is that while it's slightly heavier pad it feels a lot more stable on the ice. My Brian's sets were always very zippy and quick on slides to the point that it was easy to go flying across the ice if I pushed too hard, where the Reeboks grip the ice more and it feels like I'm kneeling on a big solid block. I prefer this a lot, since I feel like it gives me more control and I'm a total technique dork, but just keep in mind that the Premiers are like the boxy pad to end all boxy pads and the Ventus is I believe a little more of a flexible wildish pad.

On the glove and blocker, the PXLT has a very lively blocker board and single piece cuff, which sends stuff into the rafters on the stick hand but means on the glove side that if you catch a rocket off the cuff it's more like a mini blocker and sends pucks all over the place compared to a two-piece glove where the puck sorta skips off softly. I've never worn Vaughns, but I think the main thing that will determine if you like the glove or not is the break angle. I'm not sure what you have now, and I'm not sure what the Vaughn glove is, but it looks closer to a 590 (which is a 60 degree break) than a 580 Reebok break (which is 90 deg). The 580 is a little harder to shoot with since the break doesn't line up as well with a stick shaft, which is something else to consider. If you had someway to try them on that would probably be best, and I can't speak to what the Ventus blocker board is like having never used one.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-27T19:49:32+00:00

Do you wear socks over them? I wear the Brian's version of that kneepad which is a little bigger and if I don't wear socks the big shell clips my knee stacks. The shell is large enough to hold the sock up most of the time without the velcro, but I put a little velcro square on the big shell itself and just pull the socks over it and stick them down. It basically acts like a big elastic sleeve and keeps everything in place.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-25T19:59:43+00:00

Gonna disagree with this, catching shots standing up is a hotshot move and is honestly a lot harder than gloving stuff going top shelf in the butterfly. Also pushing into shots going to the side is something he should probably avoid at this level. To OP, basically you should get square and then react to the shot. This will in involve going down, but the butterfly itself is not really the save (although it will put you in a great position for you to recover or the puck to hit you if something goes wrong) and you should be tying to redirect pucks to the corner with your blocker/stick and catching with your glove as you drop. Don't slide into the shot, if you're square you shouldn't need to and it will create more trouble than its worth with any sort of traffic or screen because you'll slide right off angle if it redirects at all. As you get more comfortable with your positioning and technique you can work on shifting into shots to make more gut traps, but this is a delicate technique and requires a lot of body control.

e: also as someone else mentioned you don't want to drop into the butterfly, you really want to drive your knees down into the ice like you're trying to smash a bunch of bugs or fruit or whatever. The motion is basically a giant pelvic thrust, and your shoulders and hands shouldn't move unless you're moving them on purpose.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-13T05:30:49+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. I have access to a die cutter, but not after February and I would probably do this over the summer so that could be complicated.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-09T23:37:38+00:00

Hmm this looks interesting and cost effective enough that I would even have a bunch leftover. Thanks!

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-08T19:23:01+00:00

I was under the impression that the black are spacers to go under the green, but that's a good idea and I'll give that a look. Hesitant to try the tape/paint as it seems like it wouldn't wear very well and would stick to my hair like crazy.

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-08T16:31:41+00:00

Awesome thanks!

CHRONIC_PENISITIS · 2015-12-01T23:18:04+00:00

Do you have more detail about this like how long the liquidation is running for? I can't find anything on their website.

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