Why are the Flyers goalies wearing those old looking pads?

[PHI Flyers10]

I haven't been able to catch any of the games lately so I'm not sure if they've said why the goalies are wearing those brown pads. I was thinking Parent gave Bryz his old pads to make him better. Kind of like in that movie Like Mike.

[NoVaFlyerFan]

^{I believe they were designed for the Winter Classic. They are new-technology pads, but designed to look old-school. I think they look cool, but wish that the goalies would get a simple white mask to go with them. It looks odd to have throw-back pads and an overly busy airbrushed mask.}

[WingNut722]

Might look even better without the mask altogether! Old Time Hockey, anyone? :-)

[terp]

I haven't been able to catch any of the games lately so I'm not sure if they've said why the goalies are wearing those brown pads. I was thinking Parent gave Bryz his old pads to make him better. Kind of like in that movie Like Mike.

They are in fact really old pads. They are paying Bryzgalov so much money that they decided to economize a little on equipment until things look up a bit.

[PHI Flyers10]

Lol at terp. I think they look pretty cool too. I thought it was just a Bryz thing but I saw Bob was sporting them yesterday too. All white masks would be nice to go along with them. Maybe something sort of designed like Bernie's. It can have a Flyers symbol about the caged part and then some black dots like the old holes in the masks.

[aziz]

i kind of hate them. they wore those nasty looking unpainted all leather pads in the 70's because no one could figure out how to do anything else. why pretend technology sucks again? imo, it's dumb to *paint* something to look like it's unpainted.

even worse are the blockers that have the little dots on them to look like old school cooper waffleboards. brodeur is using one. back in the day, the best they could come up with to deal with the impact of the puck was stagger the padding. we can do better now, why pretend like we can't by putting painted dots on the gear?

or the heltmets with painted-on air holes like the old cageless form-fits had.

i dunno. retro is one thing, faux low-tech is another.

[NoVaFlyerFan]

Wait a second, Aziz. You could make that same argument about any retro styling. When people buy Harley-Davidson motorcycles that make a ton of noise, they aren't pretending that quieter exhaust systems haven't been invented. They just like it that way. Dodge didn't design the Challenger to look the way it does because it is pretending that there have been no improvements in aerodynamic design since the 70s. It just looks better the old way. Is there any need for the laces at the top of the Flyers winter classic jersey? Do they actually lace anything?

I don't think anyone is going for a "low-tech" look, they are going for "classic" look.

[terp]

@aziz

Ever seen the Three Stooges when Curley gets all freaked out and they have to give him some cheese to calm him down? Have some cheese dude. OK, I may be dating myself a little bit.

Look at it this way though: what does it take to get a goaltender to use a particular piece of equipment in a game? They have to be pretty comfortable with it. It has to be awesome in fact. Can you imagine the conversation with a goaltender if a team tried to get him to wear a pair of pads that sucked? The technology is definitely there under the retro look.

[aziz]

@NoVaFlyerFan

i know what you're saying. i just hate it. the very second people figured out how to make a durable material that could be dyed to replace the old sh!t brown leather pads, the replaced the old sh!t brown leather pads. harley's with loud pipes sound cool. brown pads that don't match the rest of the uniform at all don't look cool. imo, obviously.

and the blocker thing is even worse. i'd be almost ok with it if there were actually holes in the blocker like there used to be, but to put shiny vinyl dots all over to pretend? stupid. at least the shirt tie-ups are real laces.

[aziz]

@terp

well, i'm not like foaming at the mouth pissed about it. just think it's a dumb look. i couldn't wait to get white pads back when those were first hitting the market, and now people are voluntarily going back to the bo-bo brown we had no choice but to have back then? i just see them and tihnk about the loaner pile of crappy gear the pee-wee goalies used when their parents wouldn't shell out the cash for decent stuff.

and, i assume those are actually bob's normal pads under there, with a new shell. they'll do that when a goalie changes teams or gets called up or whatever, so he doesn't have to break in new gear. he'll prolly look like a dork for a few more games and go back to normal.

[radoran]

I kinda like the old school look. I think it has reflected the more "lunchpail" mentality the team is trying to get back to - a solid work ethic up and down the lineup with contributions all around. Nothing flashy - just do your job.

I'd LOVE going to even a mostly-white mask. Tim Thomas' is a nice one. I keep expecting them to color-by-numbers it in though.

In the end, I don't really care what the goalie is wearing as long as it stops pucks.