Ms.Gura
English 2B
February 3, 2016 The Masked Men Imagine a small rubber disk hitting you with no protection, well many years ago, the National Hockey League goaltenders underwent many challenges to help improve the game to what it is today. They helped to go from no helmets, to some high protection face masks. Improved the old straight edge wooden sticks, into some curved foam core sticks. And even went from thin foam pads, to a thin shock absorbing leg protection. despite the old unproductive equipment, today there are new ways of protecting a goalie, goalie equipment has evolved because the equipment today is a has been improved a lot better than what it was before. The difference between the eras of goalie helmets is the new styles of protection. Helmets came along way within a 50 year age of hockey. Compared to the older helmets made of leather. The helmets today are made now made of a thicker fiberglass polymer material (History of hockey). [In …show more content…
From the old school foam filled leather covered pads evolved a greater more colorful synthetic puck absorption material. Way back to the beginning origins of the game of hockey there were no assigned goalies so therefore no pads yet until 1896 (in 1896, goaltender George Merrit wore Cricket leg pads to be the first official goalie.) then after other goalies noticed how much the pads helped they followed Merrit soon after. Later in the game of hockey goalies started to get more adapted to the ice, this means they wore warmer leather equipment. Due to this leather equipment the pads were heavier than there cricket counter parts. Today the pads may seem heavy but they are only getting lighter. With most of the players now getting leather pads they wanted to specialize the pads to their liking so one by one they started to take the leather required to make the pad and dye it in a color of their