All right Ry thanks for taking your Christmas vacation to come up here and shoot some video with us we’re going to go through and talk about the gear the order of operations that you put it on and maybe check in see how your season’s going and um we’ve got a big year coming
Up for the draft prospect tournament or prospect game coming up So let’s talk about putting the gear on have you have you ever forgotten your gear before oh yeah definitely what piece of equipment did you forget uh I think I forgot my skates a few times yeah and was it mom and dad’s fault or was it your fault I thought it was my
Parents fault at the time of of course it was so one thing we’ve talked about in the past make sure we don’t forget gear is when you take it off at home you take your bag out you dump it all out and put it back in the order that you
Wear it jock under Gitch all that stuff and then you put it back on in the order that you wear it and that way it’s impossible to forget something because how would it be miss you got a great game you forgot your skates and the NHL
Gu there to draft you and oh Ryerson can’t play he’s got no skates so let’s just start getting dressed R and um we’ll talk through so we’ve got your uh your under Gitch what type of underg do you use the tough stuff that comes from Mrs SGA yeah they just provide that
Whatever and then next step you put on the knee pads and funny story about the order of operations for getting dressed everybody’s going to have their own preferences on how they want to get dressed in what order uh it’s funny like a guy like Scott clemenson I used to
Coach played in the NHL for a long time became an NHL goalie coach he would put a skates on and tie them up standing which is the most weird thing I’ve ever seen now with your knee guards you’re using CCMS you find they slip down or
What do you use to help keep them up in place do you do any tape or they just stay up on their on their own I wear socks so they just help me keep it up for sure and so in the ol is it mandated that you wear socks cuz some leagues
Some leagues you have to some leagues you don’t yeah no my goalie partner he doesn’t wear socks he just tapes them up and so what’s your thought process when you decide whether you want to be a socks guy or just wearing trackies or how do you decide is that just what
You’ve always done yeah honestly as soon as I started playing hockey I always wear socks so just kept with it my personal opinion is I think it looks better looks a little more professional and your under Gitch there can help keep them in with the with the velcro so
What’s next A J and nothing miraculous about that but but I will tell people we got to make sure that those straps go around behind and your butt are fairly tight because you don’t want that thing to have any Gap out in front that thing’s out there and you get hit by an
OHL or NHL shot there’s going to be a problem to have you got a good one there yet this year I have a couple and did you wish you were dead yeah you remember who shot it um I think it was uh Marone yeah he got a pretty hard who he play
For oh no I was in practice oh your own gu yeah I was in practice it’s always your own guys that do it yeah so CCM how did you decide on the CCM pants and what do you notice the difference between quality goalie pants and then some guys
Little kids that are starting out just using forward pants yeah well um CCM is actually like mandated by the league so you have to wear CCM pants I was always in I think bow or vaugh pants so I have to make the switch it’s it’s I know I
Hate pants to begin with like CL so you’d want to play with pants yeah if I could for sure you’d sell tickets to that so what comes next after the pants got skates skates and we got these new um ski boot type what are they called uh
Connect connect and have you had them fall apart on you yet or they’ve been pretty I haven’t they’ve been good nice it’s nice just do one strap and on they go easy and it’s funny how history changes when I was a kid they had Micron skates same thing a little booty and a
Little plastic shell but it’s nice you can get them on that quickly yeah it’s nice we’re going to talk a little bit more about Skate shark I mean what do you run for yours for hollow um I get half an inch half inch Hollow yeah and
Do you ever alter the hollow base on if you’re playing in a rink with crappy ice it’s too soft you always stick to half inch I always stick with half inch nice yeah how often you get your skate sharpened um before every game and then like once or twice a week during
Practices right and I think that’s one thing a lot of young kids do is they’ll go quite a while between sharpenings and so you’re getting them sharpened before every game that’s what happens in the NHL and you also want to have a guy you trust so I’m assuming the guy that does
Your skates with the the steel head’s pretty quality kid and as a kid in minor hockey you got to find your guy a guy that you trust to sharpen your skates so you’re not having a problem and I’d recommend in minor hockey trying to have one practice on freshly sharpened skates
Before you bring them into a game and hope the guy at the rink or wherever you got them done didn’t mess them up so putting pads on now um what’s the order that you put them on as far as strapping how did you do the the toe laes first
Yeah I do my toe toe laces first I got the straps and then I’ll show you in a sec so it’s anchored at the front comes across on the top and you don’t have a lot of leash on those you just use the flexibility in the ACT it’s a rubberized
Strap so it does allow some rotation but still firmly on it yeah and I go just top down after that and then top down yeah the nice thing with these new pads is we’re not doing up a million straps and you can get them on very quickly now
About pad sizing how do you size your pads how do you know where you want the kneat to be and the thy rise talk to me about your process for sizing your pads um yeah so I like my knee right in the middle of the of the knee cushion right
Here yeah and then I like the length to be like when I stand up just right in the crotch area and that helps when you’re in the butterfly sealing the fiveo yeah in case it doesn’t get stopped with your stick you got a nice th rise closure in there behind it how
Do you like these uh CCM eflex is that what they’re called yeah I like them a lot actually I just got into them around the end of the season last year and I’ve stuck with them and yeah they’ve been my pads so far nice yeah so I noticed you
Got suspenders are you a a chesty in guy or a chesty out guy I tuck it in nice and the shoulders go and the straps go over top of the shoulders yeah so when you’re doing your neck guard is this a cut prooof neck guard it
Is it and nowadays with that poor kid that got cut in the neck I think it’s an important thing so these accomplish a couple things they protect from the skate cuts and skates are sharpened so much better than they ever were super dangerous plus there’s a cushioning factor of some additional protection up
There in the clavicle all right so what comes off next or what goes on next and so when you’re sizing your chest and arm what are some of the things that you do or any mods that you’ve done to these to help with protection um I’ve added see this I’ve
Added like a little thing here just to push it out more right um give yourself a little cushion yeah other than that pretty fundamental off off the shelf one thing I always talk to kids about too is making sure that we’re always checking these straps at the back because they can come undone
You don’t want to be landing your elbow right on the ice now were these suspender straps an add-on that your team did or did they come that way they came with the chest protector action and so nice keeps it from rubbing on your neck and if you’ve ever had suspenders
Over top of your upper body you don’t really want them sliding in there so what’s the benefits to you for being a tuck-in guy because I know some guys like to wear it out some guys like to wear it inside what’s the benefits to
You um yeah I used to wear I used to go out and then I just felt like clunky on the ace it didn’t feel good and then I tried to tuck it in I just felt like more like more uh more tighter I guess on the I used to like tucking in just
For one reason when I looked down I could actually see the puck a lot better I didn’t lose Pucks in my waist and and in The Jock area and it was a lot easier for me to to track the puck all right now I was going to ask you another
Question a lot of goalies in the NHL pretty much gear right down in the in the intermissions yeah and and are you a guy that just goes upper body down I don’t do anything just leave Jersey on everything there’s a guy who played with Doug lster a defenseman for the Canucks
He took everything off in between every period really you’re the only guy I’ve ever met that’s done this trick Rel leave one arm out so you can get it in and then help get the Jersey on and that might be a tip for parents at home if
Your kids struggling to get that Jersey on leave that one arm dangling and then you can get it all right let’s talk about your helmet got a filthy paint job on there with Morgan Wallen how did you decide that you uh we’re going to put Morgan Wallen
On you obviously love his Tunes um yeah that’s pretty much it like you’ve seen him in concert before I have actually yeah um yeah I just like his music didn’t know really what to do for my helmet this year so I decided to do like a like a Nashville Country theme so I
Got two country on there and then Broadway Street in Nashville there nice wouldn’t it be ironic if you got drafted by the Predators that would be great all right all right throw it on for a second I don’t want to chat now you’re not a dangler guy and a lot of that’s personal
Preference if you want to wear it you wear it if you don’t you don’t but I do know that Malcolm suban took a deflection and practice right up on his throat and basically crushed his Adam apple almost di but you’ve got some good shock protection underneath there let’s
Grab the gloves and talk about those now a lot of guys use practice track ER with practice Palm very hard to close so you don’t get killed in practice do you use a practice glove or you just use the same one um I Ed a practice this is actually uh this is my
Practice one my game one’s getting like modified right now and what mods you doing to your game one uh it just started to go in like that when I closed my gloves so we’re just tighten this up a bit tightening up the tea and what’s the reason why goalies use practice Palm
Gloves uh exactly that just hard shots you don’t want to take a stinger and get your hand injured so you just add some protection and you’re good to go and the thing is the sheer volume of shots that you see in practice are far more than
You ever get in the game so if there’s a time you’re going to get hurt it’s going to be in practice you got your own guys with time and space able to just drop bombs that helps in practice and also keeps your hand from getting broken nothing too fancy with the blockers
They’re pretty standard and then grab your stick and let’s quickly talk about that throw that stick up in front of you so the it’s yeah let’s let’s go this way with it all right so put it right in front of your jaw for a second so you notice this is how you
Size you over a length of a stick it’s in his chin area that allows much better Puck handling so when you’re a young golender you can cut the shaft of the stick it doesn’t affect the weight or balance carry prices very short this is where it needs to be in your chin and
Your mouth area that way when you’re handling the puck it’s going to be a lot easier to get proper shooting mechanics now drop down in your butterfly for a second get a picture there Tommy come down low and when we size the paddle height we want to make sure that we’ve
Got good coverage with our armpits and you size the stick when it’s in your butterfly not when it’s up on your stance all right Ry let’s get out there and shoot some pictures today for this brand new book and get warmed Up My
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