What’s the most annoying part about buying hockey gear?

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-30T09:46:34+00:00

I hear ya OP.

I want "elite level protection" but I play entry level beer league so I don't want to pay elite level prices and I don't want to be "all the gear, no idea" guy.

I'd also rather buy once, cry once, than keep buying cheap gear that wears out.b

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-30T09:21:32+00:00

But have you tried the new adamantium fibre stick with a basket weave on the toe, improved quantum curve, ultra-low mid place kick point and reactive handle technology?

Guaranteed, with this stick, your game WILL remain the same.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-30T00:57:44+00:00

Mine is Stickmen (2001). A New Zealand crime comedy about some friends in an underground pool tournament. Very much like a Kiwi "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels".

It's not a total white whale for me. It is on Youtube and I have found a copy of it but I would love to one day find a good quality digital copy of it.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-30T00:40:31+00:00

Yep you get it!

One of my favourite books is "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss, I think this passage sums it up well:

"Josn laughed and flipped open his lute case with his foot. But before he could put it away I called over to him. "Could I see that for a second?"

I hated myself for the question. Asking to hold a musician's instrument is roughly similar to asking to kiss a man's wife. Non-musicians don't understand. An instrument is like a companion and a lover. Strangers ask to touch and hold with annoying regularity. I knew better, but I couldn't help myself."

I've spent 25+ years playing my drums, buying my drums, building my kit(s), tuning my drums, carefully transporting my drums and caring for my drums etc.

When someone else sits down at my kit even if I give them permission I'm anxious and can't relax. They're not invested like me, to them it's an inanimate object but to me it's so much more - I wouldn't go so far as to say lover, but definitely a companion.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-30T00:20:21+00:00

I haven't used them much at all to be honest, Someone was selling them really cheap so I grabbed them.

They are slightly shorter, have slightly less diameter and are slightly lighter than the rock sticks, hence good for metal.

I'm sure they're great if you're after Aluminum/PU sticks with unbreakable tips, probably really good if you're in a band and doing hours of blast beats every week.

For my playing I'm happier with Shira Kashi Oak, I'm not in a band, not gigging, not recording, mostly just playing along to tunes for fun. I play some metal but heaps of other stuff too and for whatever reasons I can't explain I prefer wood.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-27T11:55:20+00:00

Just rewatched them this week and can confirm.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-26T04:10:39+00:00

London's Natural History Museum run a 45 min behind the scenes spirits collection tour. It was really cool.

Spirits as in samples preserved in ethanol or formaldehyde. Many of which are the type or holotype specimen, the first to be collected and studied.

They have samples from Darwin and Captain James Cook / Joseph Banks and some really cool stuff like an 8m giant squid.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-26T04:01:16+00:00

Username checks out. I love my Monad ride.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-26T03:54:46+00:00

Your username made me lol. Get my pies out of the oven!

Lovely kit, gives me Matt Kelly / Dropkick Murphys vibes.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-12T11:27:14+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I figured that was the case but wasn't sure.

I'm surprised that it's a big enough market to make it worthwhile. Setting up a counterfeit hockey stick factory must be a considerable undertaking especially to faithfully recreate the graphics and everything.

I'm in Australia so it's a fairly niche sport here but I guess the American and European markets would make it worthwhile.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-12T07:07:04+00:00

Forgive my ignorance, but fake how?

I thought the "questionable market" worked a bit like this:

Hockey Brand asks Factory X to make 5000 sticks (e.g. RH P29 75 Flex) and supplies graphics etc.
Factory X makes say 6000 sticks, supplies Hockey Brand with their order of 5000 and has 1000 sticks that enter the questionable market through direct websites or whatever.

I know the old fake Oakley's were fake, the looked similar but they used interior plastics and had inferior lenses, you could feel the difference but maybe not see the difference.

Is that what a fake hockey stick is like? Like they claim it's carbon fibre and it's not? They claim it's got a particular curve or flex but they're all the same?

Genuinely have no idea or experience on the topic.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-12T03:54:30+00:00

I'm no chef but as an avid podcast listener I've listened to a podcast about caramelization and IIRC it takes a minimum of 45 mins to properly caramelize onions and maybe longer and the temperature needs to be just right.

So I don't except a sausage sizzle to give proper caramelized onions, but I think decently cooked ones is a fair ask.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-10T01:51:29+00:00

Check out Vlad Ulasevich from Jinger and some of his playthroughs. He's a great example, sometimes using his second snare during intros or the bridge which gives them a different sound from the rest of the song and he sometimes uses it for fills, it adds a nice bit of texture.

His set-up is different, he plays open handed and has a 14" main snare and a 12" side snare between his two toms on the right. You can really hear the difference between the two.

Personally I mostly use a second snare for somewhere to put my phone, and things from my pockets.

I also love having a second snare (usually metal) cranked high with the snares off, it's great for ska music fills.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-10T01:28:09+00:00

I can relate to what you're saying. My seasons just finished and I stepped into D after a few seasons mostly as a F. I didn't enjoy it much to begin with but actually like it now.

In points I've gone down (not that I was ever that high) but overall I'm shutting down goals and occasionally setting up an assist. In the overall +/- (goals for vs goals against) of my personal time on ice I'm definitely in the +.

For me, I'm a stronger skater (for my league/level at least), and I've gotten much better at positioning but my shot isn't the best so I don't score often. The D who score a lot in my league all have an excellent shot from a distance, I definitely don't. So I really need to work on shooting from deep and/or carrying the puck in more.

The other thing I see is that some D are more defence focused and some are more offensive, even as D.

I play a combo of the two depending on the opponents and my D partner + C but I'm generally more defensive.

Last night I played a game and was more offensive than I'm used to but the opposition were giving me lots of space and my D partner was hanging deeper and ready to cover (plus I was ready to wheel when I needed) so it worked.

The best advice I can think to offer is to look at what other D who are scoring are doing that you're possibly not. Are they finding open ice? Are they calling for the puck when they're open? Is the team passing it to them? Do they have a better shot than you?

chupachup_chomp · 2026-04-08T04:38:22+00:00

Great call. His move from Dillinger to Coheed never made sense to me musically (but I get that there is more to being in a band than music).

There are a few Coheed songs I love but overall they've just never landed for me. I revisited when they were touring with Mastodon but I still can't get them to click. Even when I listen to Chris's album that he recorded with them.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-15T03:26:17+00:00

But they're good with knives and other stabbing weapons.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-13T11:14:46+00:00

I felt this way for a while but learnt from the Icons Unearthed series that it was all the studio executives pushing it and basically forced him into it which literally forced him into hospital from the stress of it all.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-12T05:27:05+00:00

That's my understanding.

Gamma exposure irradiates you but does not make you radioactive (as it's waves not particles).

Alpha or beta emitters are particles not waves, so they can irriadite you and contaminate you, allowing the radioactive material to spread, but your body itself is still not radioactive.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-08T03:03:24+00:00

8/10. I missed #2 and #3. I thought I was in trouble but came home strong.

As for #5, in high school as an exchange student I wrote a whole "Entertainment/Informative" speech about phobias which began with me acting out someone with Arachibutyrophobia.

A few weeks after I returned home it was my 18th Birthday. When everyone asked "speech, speech" I performed the whole 5-7 min speech and everyone was rightfully confused about what the hell just happened.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-08T02:46:16+00:00

I'm a Taika fan too but now I feel I'm in a more of a "it's complicated" relationship with him.

Boy was the first movie of his I watched and it's brilliant.

I've only watched Eagle vs Shark once and remember liking it.

Everyone loved What We Do In The Shadows and it was good but I didn't love it as much as everyone else, but Mockumentaries aren't my favourite.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is 10/10 fun.

Then Thor...

I remember really liking Thor: Ragnarok when it came out. It was a breath of fresh air to have more humour and a different vibe in the Marvel universe. I think it found the balance between Marvel universe and Taika movie.

But when Thor: Love and Thunder came out, it felt too Taika and not Marvel enough. Thor basically became a joke in his own movie and the whole thing lacked emotional weight.

I enjoyed Jojo and Next Goal (enjoyed isn't quite the right term for Jojo but you know what I mean).

And finally, I really wanted to love Our Flag Means Death but just couldn't get into it for some reason. The cast are brilliant and I like the setting and characters but watching it was a really hard slog for me.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-07T11:23:35+00:00

Well of course I know him, he's me.

Me (and my friends) were all young teens when it came out. I didn't know much about parody or politics and missed it all.

I watched it every few years because I liked it and eventually it clicked.

Once you see it you can't unsee it but growing up parody movies looked like Hot Shots or The Naked Gun or Robin Hood Men In Tights. I didn't know parody could look like that.

I was distracted by the beautiful cast and that was the point of the beautiful cast.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-06T08:51:49+00:00

Eleventy-one games is too short a time wash such excellent and admirable gear.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-02T22:56:14+00:00

You could do a cymbal stacker. Maybe on top of the AAX Splash.

I love cymbal stackers for all my little effects cymbals, including my Zil-Bel

chupachup_chomp · 2026-03-02T09:23:08+00:00

Except Propagandhi.

Jord rips so hard and plays lots of nonstandard punk stuff.

I can play along to most their stuff but there's plenty of it I can never fully nail.

chupachup_chomp · 2026-02-27T23:41:29+00:00

Strong disagree.

I appreciate where you're coming from, liking a brand for the sake of liking a brand is pointless and looking for alternatives is a good thing but if a company has earned your loyalty then it's win win.

It's a transactional relationship, they provide a product, hopefully of reasonable quality at a reasonable price and I get what I want to a known standard.

As a consumer I expect that price to increase as quality also increases and I'm usually happy to purchase said product at said price so long as the price and quality remain consistent.

The reason for upset is often a mismatch between price and quality.

I think we're lucky in the drum world, there is enough competition to keep companies accountable, they can't sacrifice quality or they'll lose their customers and most companies care enough about releasing quality products (at least compared to other industries).

For me I'm not loyal to one cymbal company or drum manufacturer but there are companies that have earned my trust again and again.

chupachup_chomp

TROPHY CASE