Just a few decades ago the shoulder pads that were being worn by hockey players in even the most physical leagues were small hockey shoulder pads that offer just enough padding to protect your shoulders well. These days however, many youth hockey and adult hockey players are overprotected in terms of what they wear on their shoulders and elbows and in check ice hockey leagues this is a recipe for disaster. Ice hockey shoulder pads now come with incredibly hard and thick shoulder caps that players often lead with when going to make a hit on another player. Sure, these shoulder pads are great for preventing injuries to the shoulder, but unfortunately they can be very dangerous to your competitors.

Obviously the ice hockey shoulder pad should provide sufficient protection, but at a certain point hockey equipment manufacturers need to realize that you can have too much protection on your shoulders. If everybody wore the old school shoulder pads of our hockey forefathers, yes there might be a few more shoulder injuries, but on a positive note, there would also be less concussions. Is it likely that hockey players will go back to the hockey shoulder pads of old? Probably not. But it is something that hockey players should have in the back of their mind. They should realize that they do have a responsibility to try and check opposing players by leading with their shoulder and not making direct contact with the head. But it is also important to realize that all hockey players are different sizes and completely eliminating hits to the head is next to impossible. Ultimately the responsibility lies on each hockey player to keep their head up and not put themselves in dangerous situations.

Of course, shoulder pads and elbow pads are necessary to wear as a hockey player. So when you do purchase your hockey equipment, just keep in mind that you want to be well protected, but you do not want to put opposing players in danger when you wear too many pads that are simply too hard and thick to provide any real benefit to the player using them, and quite simply can do a ton of damage to players that get hit near the head with that equipment.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you do play check hockey you are probably going to want to purchase a shoulder pad that is on the bulkier side. You will probably also want to consider a shoulder pad that has sufficient rib and torso protection for those times when you go down to block shots. If you play in an adult hockey league that does not allow checking, you might not want to go with something as big and cumbersome as what you would wear if you were playing check hockey. The old school cheap hockey shoulder pads that are basically just a shoulder cap and a very small amount of padding over your chest should be a sufficient pair for the league that does not allow contact.

Your preference in hockey shoulder pads should be based on how well this piece of ice hockey equipment protects you. If you play defense and you are a player who does like to try and block shots, you definitely need to consider getting superior chest protection to prevent serious injuries. Many hockey players choose to go with the smallest pads possible simply because they do not like to feel like the pads are getting in the way of their movement. But you should always consider wearing the more protective pair of shoulder pads because it doesn’t take much time to get used to wearing the more protective yet bulkier shoulder protection.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.