Cautionary Product Advice About Kneepads

Bauer Supreme Kneepads

Never buy these.

They’re to protecting your knees while playing hockey what the Maginot Line was to protecting France — theoretically perfect protection, but practically useless in the real world.

I bought Bauer Supreme goaltending kneepads about three years ago when I switched my goal pants. With my previous pants I just tied the now-illegal five-hole flippers they have ’round my legs and my knees would then be covered. Simple.

The new pants were too big to do that, though, so I just left the flippers flop loose and thought, rather stupidly, “Oh, that’ll be good enough. I won’t get hit in the knee.” …Until I got two shots directly off the kneecap two weeks in a row and it was clear the Hockey Gods were giving me a sign — it was time to go hunting for kneepads.

So I went and bought the Bauers at Goalie Heaven for a way-more-than-they’re-worth-materials-and-labour-wise $50 (Goalie Monkey lists the Bauer Supremes at $49.99) and presumably solved my problem. But this piece of gear has been a Sean Avery to me ever since. The straps are about as loose as your momma’s lips, they fall down my leg as frequently as Lindsay Lohan falls down outside of bars, and worst of all, they’re about as protective as a condom made out of Swiss cheese.

This was all reinforced to me this past weekend while playing in the higher level Ghetto Classic Hockey Tournament. Our guys were quite overmatched against the host team the Ghetto Blasters, and we were losing about 5-0 by the start of the third period. I was enjoying the challenge, though, and doing reasonably well all things considered. Then a sequence happened where I had to speed left to right cross-crease to get to a one-timer. I got to it, making a sweet save. But I didn’t get to it fast enough to close up my butterfly. The end result was this:

When kneepads don't work

Thanks Bauer Supreme kneepads. It’s all your fault that I haven’t been able to move my leg for the last four days.