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Pens Season opener and Oct!

Up to you knuckleheads to take care of the Cryers tonight; I'll be in Chicago (and unfortunately, NBCSN is carrying TBL-NYR.....which presumably means no possible alternate on NHL Network).
 
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Oh ya for sure many have played on the local lake/pond, and still do growing up. Although I'd wager it's less now than a few decades ago. We actually play in a tourney yearly on my local lake which will happen this Feb again...

SCUGOG I love that name !!!
 
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Congrats to you knuckleheads.......looks like you pushed the Guins to their best game of the season; and you picked the perfect opponent against which to do it.

From what I can tell, the Cryers were perfectly embarassed in the post-game. If you didn't see it, NBCSN ran lockeroom interviews with Niskanen, Giroux, and Elliott......each of which acted like their dogs had just gotten run over in front of their houses.

Even Pierre McGuire, on his weekly NHLN Radio spot this morning, piled on the Cryers. He also said,,,,,,in classic PIerre fashion.....said the Pens coaching through these injuries has been the best in the League.
 
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Interesting piece in today's PG about Matt Murray and his new pads; learned some things about them I never knew before (which is virtually anything).....

The holiday season was then three months away, but it felt a little like Christmas when Matt Murray walked into work one morning in mid-September.

Murray, arriving at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex for a practice early in training camp, made a left into the Penguins locker room and saw a present sitting at his locker. So shiny, new and bright white. And firm. Murray likes them firm.

The goalie’s Vaughn Ventus SLR2 leg pads had finally arrived in the mail.

The excitement of getting new gear isn’t quite what it was when he was a little kid growing up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The two-time Stanley Cup champion gets similar deliveries several times a year. But it’s still something he looks forward to.


“Every time I get a new set, I just feel very lucky, very fortunate to be a part of a team that buys you the best stuff,” Murray said earnestly in early October.

The Penguins can’t just snap their fingers and have goalie gear such as leg pads, catching gloves and chest protectors magically arrive via jolly elves overnight.

The time-consuming process of getting a custom pair of goalie pads delivered for the season opener began in early July with Murray deciding what to wear. Workers in a busy factory in Michigan built his foam pads and stitched them together.

His gear was then shipped to the 11th floor of an office building in Toronto to be scrutinized by the NHL’s equipment clearinghouse, which, incredibly, is just one man who will get around to inspecting your equipment as soon as he can.

So, yeah, it can take a long while from the moment Murray dreams up the look of a new pair of legs pads until the Penguins equipment staff opens up one of those oversized cardboard boxes and neatly sit his pads in front of his locker.

Looking good, feeling good

Many goalies agonize over which pads to wear. Murray isn’t one of them.

He has tried other manufacturers over the years but says he has worn Vaughn for his “whole life.” He now has a sponsorship agreement with the company.
“All of these pads, to the naked eye, look the same. But once you wear them, you can tell the difference,” said Murray, who is 6-3-0 with a .918 save percentage after shutting out the Dallas Stars on Saturday. “I mean, we’re in them every day. It’s part of our body basically. Just their feel, they fit my body and my game perfectly.”

Vaughn, which was founded in 1982 and specializes in goalie gear, currently has two product lines. Their differences are more than aesthetic. The Velocity line, Murray explained, is aimed at more acrobatic goalies such as Jonathan Quick. The Ventus line, of which Murray was an early adopter, is more up his alley.

“I think it’s the lightest on the market,” he said. “And they have some material on the inside that is super slippery, so it slides better than the other stuff.”

Added Murray: “And just the way I play is more positional sometimes. [Ventus] has a little better seal [to the ice] and they’re a little bit looser on your leg rather than being super tight to your leg like some of the more athletic guys.”

So, for Murray, picking the pad type was pretty easy. He stuck with Ventus, which he has worn since that line debuted in 2016, after he won his first Stanley Cup. Determining the color scheme was a little more effort but fairly easy, too.

For the Ventus leg pads, there are 12 different color zones a goalie can customize, with 35 colors to choose from, in addition to the lacing, stitching and binding.

Murray said the Penguins prefer the base color of his pads and gloves to be white. That’s cool with him. He likes a simple, clean look. Plus, he believes white pads look bigger. He’s far from alone. The theory goes that if a shooter thinks he has less net to target, he might try to pick a corner and miss, if he even shoots at all.

“I always go mostly all white and then kind of mess around with the black and yellow,” Murray said. “The simpler you go, you know you’re going to like it.”
 
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Meanwhile, woke to 1" of heavy wet snow here in Chicago near ORD; one day before Halloween is just a touch.....say 6 weeks.....too early for yours truly to see the friggin white stuff.
 
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