Have enough skates to do a nice review on these now...
I'll start with the glove.... there's only one flaw... the glove is a black hole, when i catch the puck i don't feel it... anything that hits the pocket gets SUCKED UP, the dampening is amazing, don't even feel the puck hitting it.
Protection is GREAT, closure is pretty snappy. Tried it next to a board members Mason return Sub Zero catch and feel is similar as well. Protection is great, taken some bombs off the palm and no stingers or anything. I am absolutely in love with this glove, and wish my future wife to be this comfortable. (oops, too far...)
Onto the pads:
They're soft, really soft. They were soft when I sent them to him. So no flaw, I LOVE SOFT PADS. They really comform to the legs, and react how I want them too.
That aside onto the mods I had done.
The knee block is a thing of beauty, with HD foams on the sliding surface, and soft foams on the knee landing it is great for butterfly stability and sliding. I did asked for it to be lowered by 1" - that was a mistake turns out that 1" lowering put me up at the top of the landing. Must iterate that it was my request.
The trimming of the calf landing was great as well, it does not bind with the knee wing anymore (which was fused into the knee block). Perfect.
Onto the thigh rise shortening. Again it looks great, pad looks like it was never cut down, and the shortening is great. But that said this was a mistake on my part as well, the large thighrise never really hindered me, I justed wanted it shorter for the sake of getting it shorter. At the time it seemed like a good move since i was a very mobile scrambly goalie. Which I still am to a degree, but I suffered a shattered patella and ruptured quadriceps tendon which forced my game to be a bit more position.
I have horrible hips and I have no butterfly so to speak:
Essentially no flare, and that thighrise closed it really well. Doing some analyzation and a half hour coaching session, we thought that I really would have benefited from an extra bit of thighrise for puck stoppage and protecting my knees as well. Again this is my mistake.
Keeps33 worksmanship is TOP notch. If you need work done on your pads, do NOT hesitate to to ask him. All the work done is amazing. Just unfortunately for myself I made some questionable decisions, in regards to cutting down the thighrise and lowering the knee block which changed the fit a bit so that it's not ideal for me anymore, but this is to blame on injury too which we can never predict.
That said I have installed a bootriser on the pads and they fit perfect now, and slide great. Only wish i looked back and didn't cut down the pads - again my bad judgement.
Keeps' work is great, would highly reccomend it. Hell next pair of pads I get, I may have them shipped directly to him and have him put on this magical knee block. As for gloves... he did such an amazing job on this frankenstein, I don't see myself parting from it - I clean it with the keeps33 method, and after 2 seasons it feels almost brand new inside still... amazing!
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