Beer-league goalie designs safer pads

Ryan Frayne might well be a hockey goalie’s new best friend and a shooter’s fiercest foe.

The beer-league goalie, who is a PhD candidate in biomechanics at Western University in London, Ont., has come up with a faster, lighter goalie pad that could also leave netminders less prone to hip injuries.

His work got the attention of a major gear manufacturer. “There’s been a lot of interest, more than I expected,” Frayne said.

Frayne started his work wondering whether modifications to straps on goalie pads could reduce the incidence of hip impingement, a chronic injury that sidelines or reduces the mobility of goalies who use a butterfly style of play.

He enlisted the help of 10 goalies, then attached an array of electronic sensors to their pads and to new CCM Premier model pads in a motion lab that simulated on-ice conditions.

As he removed different straps and adjusted others, Frayne measured the effect of the modifications on the goalies’ hip, knee and ankle joints and how each change affected their mobility.

Frayne discovered some pad modifications could help goalies slap their knees tighter to the ice and flare their legs more than they could before to improve upon what’s called a butterfly technique.

“Depending on the pad setup, they could drop into the ’fly faster ... up to 7 per cent faster,” Frayne said.