My Kind of Nostalgia: Best Goalie Setups of the 2000s

Welcome to the 1st ever photo essay here on the Wounded Ducks Reading Room. I wanted to explore a topic that drew me to the game of hockey, and more specifically, the goaltending position. The topic: swag. In this post, I will outline what I feel were objectively (and perhaps not so objectively) the best goalie setups in the 2000s. From the pads themselves, to mask designs, to even how the guys wore their equipment and carried themselves; the following men were important trend setters in their time. This is my letter of appreciation to all of them.

So, why the 2000s? Two reasons:

1. From the early days of the NHL to as recently as the 1990s, goalie equipment, and leg pads in particular, did not change a ton in their design. In the 2000s, equipment companies had made major strides in leg pad construction that enabled them to get more creative with colour schemes. What resulted was an explosion in design and colour.

2. The 2000s is when my hockey fandom first started and perhaps even peaked. The goalies active in this time period get me feeling all sorts of nostalgia. The word nostalgia comes from Greek origins and can be broken down into home and pain. When I think of these goalies, I am transported back to my basement watching VHS tapes of hockey highlights or Hockey Night in Canada with my Dad or when the Battle of Ontario was at it's peak. I long to watch the game again with that level of pure awe and admiration.

Below is a brief chronology of goalie equipment advancement (or lack thereof) up to the 21st century.

Figure 1: Alec Connell, member of the 1927 Stanley Cup Champion Ottawa Senators. Leather pads and a really nice hat ("Fuck a mask" - Connell, probably).

Figure 2: A young Jacque Plante circa 1945, approximately 15-16 years old. Note the gradual evolution of the "Trapper" and "Blocker," yet the leg pads remain largely unchanged. During his career, Plante was the first goalie in the NHL to wear a mask, which he did for the first time in 1959-60 season.

Figure 3: Ken Dryden, member of the Montreal Canadiens 1970s dynasty (6 Stanley Cups in 9 years) and noted author of "The Game." Again, the Trapper and Blocker have changed some, however the leg pads are still similar to Connell's. Dryden now dawns a mask with a basic paint job featuring Canadien colours.

Figure 4: HOLY SHIT IT'S LATVIAN LEGEND ARTŪRS IRBE. Shit, I don't know if the ghost of George Vezina would wear those pads. SHEESH. Anyway, you get the point. Artūs was playing in San Jose in the early to mid 1990s. There were some goalies with colour in their pads, but designs were fairly homogenous across companies (e.g. Brian's, Heaton, Bauer, Brown etc.).

To this point, goaltenders have only been able to express themselves through rudimentary mask paint jobs, while goalie pad designs remained largely unchanged. Knowing this provides the necessary context to understand why the 2000s were about to be so iconic. With that, let's get into the list.

The List

Patrick Lalime

Sherwood 9980s

Sherwood 9980s with the classic "W" pattern, Marvin the Martian on the dome. SIMPLY ICONIC. Wow, just wow. It's easy to see why Patrick liked Marvin on his mask, given the similarities in helmets both Marvin and the Senator wear.

Marvin the Martian => Martian => Mars => Roman God => The Romans => Senators => Patrick fucking Lalime.

I seem to remember Patrick also liking Marvin's catchphrase... "This makes me very angry." While this is a menacing catchphrase, did anyone think to tell Patrick that Marvin the Martian always ended up looking like an idiot by the end of his vignette with Bugs Bunny? Maybe they should have. Maybe that would have changed everything. It really brings Lalime's knowledge of the Looney Toons Universe into question. Whatever the case, the irony is really quite delicious.

Back to the equipment. So the pads were sick with the red popping and the mask was beautiful right down to the gold cage. To show how customizable things were getting, Sherwood was actually amidst a brief period of having their STICKS customized with the same pattern as some of their goalies masks such as Jocelyn Thibault and Lalime (see photo). I think Sherwood took the customization thing a bit far with the sticks; this trend of companies going too far with customization will reemerge later. That said, I will ALSO admit I got a Lalime stick from the Arnprior Play It Again Sports when I was 9. I wanted to be Patrick Lalime (and then I really didn't, yikes).

At this time, I would like to shoutout Jonah Tremback, who had these pads during part of his tenure with the Valley Storm, before moving on to play with the Kashubian national team. Dude was sick.

Figure 5: I also rocked them for a bit, but with much less swag than both Lalime and Tremback. Great team, though.

Alright, jeez, two Ottawa Senators already. I'll give him credit though.. I was NOT expecting to read about Alec Connell. Well, whatever, let him get it out of his system. I'm sure he's got to be done now atlea.. oh for God's sake.

Ray Emery

Brian's DX2, Brian's Razor

Ray Emery, in perhaps more ways than one, was the NHLs Michael Jordan. Why? Like Nike making the Jordan Brand, Brian's dedicated a set of pads to him, calling them the "Razor" (photo below). That's how sick his style was.

What I love about the DX2 pads is the presence of gold and the exclusion of the colour black. I don't know if this was Emery's decision, but it shows that as important it is to INCLUDE some colours, it might be equally important to EXCLUDE others. With so much black on the pants right behind the pads, Ray didn't need it. I think having another colour on the pad would have cluttered the design rather than adding something. Gold was and continues to be a unique accent colour for sports teams, and the outline around the red was just enough to take this setup over the top.

Figure 6: Ray Emery wearing the Brian's Razor during his brief time in the KHL. He wore variations of the pad in Ottawa and Philly, too.

The pads were sick, and perhaps equal to the pads themselves, was how Emery carried himself on the ice. Look no further to the infamous Senators-Sabres brawl, in which he fought opposing goalie Marty Biron (decent, though checkered, setup history) as well as Buffalo enforcer Andrew Peters. If you watch the video, which you absolutely should, you'll see Emery is bouncing just like any experienced enforcer prior to his brief scrap with Biron. He's DRIPPING in swag, goodness me.

Razor was a complicated figure in the hockey world, and dealt with his fair share of issues before dying tragically in 2018. I think Ray could have been an important role model for players dealing with similar problems, such as substance abuse. He will live forever in the minds of goalie pad nerds and in the hearts of Ottawa Senators fans. Razor, of course, was a big part of the Sens making it all the way to the Cup Finals in 2007 and won the Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2013.

Figure 7: Shoutout to myself for the DX2 setup in Peewee. Honourable mention to Assistant Coach Jessup's Dad jokes: "Jeez, Liam, look's like you stole those pads. Those are Brian's."

Jean-Sébastien Giguère

Koho 580s

Allow me to break down J-S Giguère's swag.

First, the Koho 580s were an iconic set up, made even better with the Mighty Ducks colour scheme. This is the first set of Kohos on the list, but will certainly not be the last.

Second, his style of play, which was becoming main stream. His wide-ass stance and extreme use of the butterfly technique was definitely in vogue. However, at the time, Giguère was looked at as the product of a larger issue in the early 2000s NHL, where goalie equipment seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, resulting in less scoring (I think someone might have described him as the Michelin Man? Maybe Don Cherry or perhaps Dean Brown?). The bigger equipment allowed for a different style of goaltending where goalies turned into blockers of the puck; they relied on being in good position (angles, baby, angles) and big equipment, versus quick reflexes and athleticism. Welcome to goaltending in the early 21st century. There is a certain way to wear the big equipment and still look cool, though, which Giguère pulled off. The key is to have pads proportional to the chest protector. Some goalies, like Garth Snow and Marty Brodeur had relatively small leg pads to allow for a more stand-up style, paired with huge blocker/trapper and chest protector. This resulted in the top-heavy fatso-look. Not cool. J-S, on the other hand, had his ratio of pads to gloves to chesty all good, which resulted in big time swag.

Figure 8: Martin Brodeur was more of a relic in a league was changing to the butterfly style (definitely a cocoon analogy to be made there). Note the huge upper body, smaller pads, and upright stances, which all allowed for a more stand-up goaltending style, versus the low-to the ice stance of many butterfly style goalies, including J-S. Although laking swag, Marty had an extremely long career, likely aided by his stand-up style.

Finally, I must mention the Wildwing helmet. There are layers of nostalgia here. The Mighty Ducks were of course founded in 1993 by The Walt Disney Company. Disney did not waste time marketing their hockey team, making a cartoon tv show called Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series. Here's a brief snippet from Wikipedia: "In another universe exists a planet populated entirely by humanoid ducks. Dubbed "Puckworld" by its inhabitants, it is an icy planet, perfectly suited to the Ducks' favorite pastime, hockey. For the citizens of Puckworld, hockey was not simply a sport, but a way of life, occupying virtually every aspect of day-to-day existence."

Wildwing Flashblade is the leader of the "humanoid ducks" and, I can assure you, seemed pretty sick to pre-teen me. I enjoyed watching this show as a child, which was extremely in my wheelhouse, and appreciated seeing Wildwing on Giguère's mask.

Figure 9: The Mighty Ducks, with Wildwing Flashblade front and centre.

Figure 10: Wildwing Flashblade, the leader and "straight-man" on the animated Mighty Ducks inspired cartoon, was the mascot for the NHL team of the same name. Wildwing was featured prominently on Gigèure's mask.

Marc-André Fleury

Koho (several sets), Reebok (several sets), CCM

Fleury was always going to be on this list because he went bold. His bright all-yellow setup was like nothing the NHL had ever seen. What was odd about his choice in yellow was that the organization had actually moved away from yellow in favour of gold in 2002. Fleury easily could have gone with all gold pads, which had been done by his colleague Marty Turco of the Dallas Stars. The gold-out by Turco was a precursor of Fleury's time in Vegas where he would do the same. I would argue that unlike Trinidad James' song "All Gold Everything," the concept as applied to goalie pads does not work quite as well (Gold all on my pads, Gold all on my skates, Gold all on my blocker, and my trapper, trapper, trapper).

Logically, I understand why the Pens would go to gold. Jersey materials probably changed, allowing them to use fabric able to show the flashy gold. Gold is obviously better than yellow, right? It is gold after all. Unfortunately, that was wrong and the gold looks both tacky and dull. The Pens had gone away from their old, beautiful threads they wore when Lemieux and Jagr were busy winning cups in them. Since changing to the gold, all the Pens ever did was stink up the league so bad they got to draft Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury and then win a measly 2 Stanley Cups (which probably shouldn't count because they looked so bad doing it).

Figure 11: Oh man, look how they shine. Turco crosses the line here and the gold actually looks tacky. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Is it possible that when wearing the yellow pads in Pittsburgh and it's Wilkes Barre/Scranton affiliate, Fleury was actually trying to WILL the franchise back to it's roots? We can't rule it out! Come to think of it, he probably was! Fortunately for all parties involved, Pittsburgh eventually did go away from the gold and back to yellow full time in the 2016-17 season. Yet another reason to love Flower.

Figure 12: This is just so good.

Fleury would eventually go away from the all-yellow, and instead chose a more common looking setup, dominated by white, with a little black and yellow/gold, depending on the year. Despite this, I will always think of Fleury as the guy with bold style that had the craziest set in the league while using just one colour.

Roberto Luongo

Koho (Several), Reebok (Several)

Roberto Luongo had a super professional career in a number of aspects. Like Brodeur, he played a ton, totalling 20 (TWENTY!) seasons in the league in which he racked up the second most games played of any NHL goalie ever. He went to the playoffs a bunch, and although he never won a cup, he was by no means a loser. Luongo of course played a key role on the Gold Medal winning Canadian team in the 2010 Winter Olympics, which I think you have to put as his greatest professional achievement.

In addition to a long career with plenty of success, he also stands out from a gear perspective. Through writing this article, I've recognized how important unique and fun team colours are in helping a goalie have a sick set-up; there's no question that the Panthers were right in that wheelhouse!

I'm just going to get out of the way here and put up some awesome stuff and then interject where I see fit.

Figure 13: As with Patrick Lalime, Roberto's placement of the Pink Panther on his mask was the cherry on top of a great looking set-up.

Figure 14: Not afraid to switch up the colours even while wearing the same red jersey. Boy is STUNTIN on the league right now! These would have been nice with the Navy 3rd jersey the Panthers wore in this period.

Figure 15: Very saucey. Luongo in the first set of Rbk Premiere pads. The Premiere's were huge in the league, with a lot of guys going to them from Koho, including Luongo.

Up to this point, Luongo has probably led the league in swag, but has a total of 0 playoff appearances and was subsequently out of Sunrise and headed to Vancouver. This is what I call the beginning of Lungo's time as a corporate goalie. He basically went with stock colour-ways in his pads to match Vancouver's jerseys. See below.

Figure 16: Were these jerseys cool? I honestly don't know.

Figure 17: These definitely were not.

Okay get ready I'm warming up the take machine... it's heating up. Okay. Roberto Luongo did something bold after a few years in Van and it involved no colour at all. The result was quite nice, if not beautiful.

Figure 18: Came thru looking angelic.

Let's go back for a second. So, in the earlier days of equipment, you might see goalies messing around a little bit with colour, and there were some imperfections in how the pads matched jerseys. I think this actually made pads look cool and unique. A perfect example is Lungo's primarily red-yellow set in Florida, with just a bit of blue. By the late 00s, equipment companies had pads so dialed that when selecting colour schemes, you would just choose an NHL team and someone at Reebok would have already made the call for what the right amount of each colour would be. That is not art, sir! That is paint by numbers, which I've been told is not art! The result can be seen in Luongo's early days, and in pretty much every other goalie wearing Rbk/Reebok pads. They lack soul.

When Luongo went all white, it flipped everything on it's head and it looked really good, too. Goalies often look a bit bigger in all white gear, and I definitely associate that with swagger. Luongo of course wore an all-white set when Canada beat the USA to win gold in 2010. His counterpart, Ryan Miller, wore a cookie-cutter ass Buffalo Sabre set. Coincidence?

A number of goalies quickly followed Luongo and we saw the 2010s dominated by numerous all-white or close to all-white sets across all levels of hockey. Luongo eventually went back to finish his career in Florida, where he reverted to his corporate tendencies we saw in Vancouver. Tough scene. Still, a hell of a run there from 2000-2010 from the guy I am willing to call the swag GOAT.

Aftermath

Goalie equipment has continued to become better (ie. lighter through use of more durable materials) and even more customizable. While the pads no doubt perform better than ever, the new technology used to make them so customizable has resulted in a number of questionable set ups on the highest stage.

Figure 19: As Bauer's main guy in their stable, Henrik Lundqvist has been guilty of a lot of Lady Liberty pads. Seeing these leaves me feeling like the guy needs to be liberated from this style (sorry). Note: Henrik had some good stuff back with TPS, and I like how clean some of his other non-graphic Bauer set-ups are. You're better than this, Hank!

Figure 20: Having the skyline of Columbus on goalie pads is interesting as a proof of concept. I've even heard that "The Bus" has a nice skyline. It's also a unique idea. That said, it just doesn't look... cool? Put another way, I would not want to wear them.

Figure 21: For me, a logo on a set of goalie pads will never work. Especially when cut in half like this.

We are definitely in an era where every goalie's gear can be EXTREMELY unique, which I think is probably good, especially for the average beer league Joe going through a mid-life crisis. If you're in a beer league and want to get crazy with your stuff, great, that's awesome. Not my style, but that's okay (maybe contact me when I'm 42?). However, when it comes to goalie set-ups on the professional level, I look forward to a correction of the current trend and possibly going back to some retro looks, or just stuff that is clean.

I had a lot of fun doing this exercise and I hope you enjoyed it, too. If you think I missed anyone from this era, or if you feel another era was better, please let me hear it. I probably missed a few other Sens, so I definitely want to apologize up front for that.