LJ3Jim wrote in post #18376253
I've never understood how a goaltender's knees last longer than about one period. Must be some pretty rigorous conditioning/stretching routines! Enjoying Penguins/Predators at the moment.
Unlike in the 'old days', when hockey goalies wore their pads done up tightly, goalies now wear their pads with extremely loose straps so that the pads actually completely rotate - so while their knees look like, when they are down, they are almost in a split position, their knees are not in this position at all - it is the pads that have turned and really a goalie just goes straight down and with the right technique the pads rotate.
But yes, if you don't start it extremely young, you cannot develop the technique to make this a smooth process and then, as you observe, it just doesn't work and you will end up in a hospital tearing something.
Far more stressed than their knees is their groin because when they are in this position, they are exposed to someone possibly landing on one of their extended legs which is basically an almost instant disaster - this is the type of stuff you always see in the NHL when a goalie goes down and then has to leave with the help of a trainer - they have stretched their groin and basically nothing can be done because it is just something that fixes itself on its own timeline and anyone that has had a groin pull knows first hand that when you are recovering you just cannot push it because it is so prone to getting tweaked and happening again.
Number two for goalies, and it is almost a number 1, is concussions because the new style goaltending of going down to block the lower part of the net puts their head right in the kill zone for a slapshot to the head from close range - that is actually what you can see in picture #3 - a killzone slapshot that goalies have to go down to block (in the summer it is only an orange hard light ball - in the winter it is a 90mph puck. They are taught from a very early age to never turn their head but to take it straight in the teeth because the helmet are designed to diffuse these types of blows - needless to say, his helmet cost a lot of money and is actually bullet proof made of multiple layers of kevlar.
Hockey and wedding photographer. Favourite camera / lens combos: a 1DX II with a Tamron 45 1.8 VC, an A7Rii with a Canon 24-70F2.8L II, and a 5DSR with a Tamron 85 1.8 VC. Every lens I own I strongly recommend [Canon (35Lii, 100L Macro, 24-70F2.8ii, 70-200F2.8ii, 100-400Lii), Tamron (45 1.8, 85 1.8), Sigma 24-105]. If there are better lenses out there let me know because I haven't found them.
