This is a discussion on Roller Toe Tie Method within the Roller Goalie forums, part of the Equipment Chat category; As someone who played inline goalie for about 12 years and through college, I want to share as much as ...
Roller Toe Tie Method
As someone who played inline goalie for about 12 years and through college, I want to share as much as I can of what I learned and how I applied ice hockey principles to inline hockey. One of the most basic things that many of us inline goalies find incredibly annoying are toe ties, as they often get caught up in wheels. Below was my method for tying my toe ties to my skates. It worked perfectly with my RBK Premier I pads, and I never had any snags, catch-ups, or rips.
1. The first step is to take off the toe bridge of your pads. This is particularly because most modern toe bridges now extend down in front of the skate, and this inevitably gets caught in the wheel.
2. Once the toe bridge is removed, you'll have two holes where the toe bridge used to be screwed into the pads. Take the string from your toe bridge and string it directly through those two holes in the same manner as they were previously installed. That is, put the strings straight through the holes and then extend them back towards the back of the boot.
3. Now you'll take the strings and bring them straight to the appropriate side of the front hole of the chassis without crossing or tying them, as you would in ice hockey.
4. Now that you've crossed them in the first chassis hole, you tie them just like ice hockey skates. In other words, extend them back towards the furthest back hole in the chassis, cross them again, and then bring the ends up to the top of your skate and tie them.
Below are a couple pictures:
This picture shows that the string comes straight from the toe bridge holes into the first hole in the chassis to be crossed.
This picture shows what happens to the strings when you're in the butterfly. The single string extends above the wheel nicely, without getting caught, as your toe/foot hits the floor flat. Note that the boot strap is very loose, as this takes pressure off of your ankle.
Enjoy!
It isn't really necessary to remove the bridge, depending on the pad. Just tie it tight using waxed laces.
However, this technique is solid. Crossed through the toe tie hole, around through the boot strap opening, and up. Double knot on top if you're concerned about it coming undone.
Not sure what you mean by if you just tie it tight you might not have to remove the toe bridge. My concern (and experience) with the toe bridge in inline is that because it extends down, the wheel ends up rubbing on it. So you have to take it off in order for the wheel not to rub on the toe extension.
Anyway, I was actually think about this more the other day, and I think using the bridgeless/extensionless direction along with Flex Toes might be the best bet for inline goalies. The elastic band will be less likely to get caught in the wheel and will force the pad back into position.
When they're not snapping, FlexToes work great.
Your (Elite's) method works well. I guess the toe bridge just depends on the wheel/skate combo. I use TPS pads and G1 skates; never had an issue. YMMV
< elite.
I recently thought about getting some inline skates just to try it out with the Flex Toes, but then I remembered that I have absolutely zero will to go back to inline right now. If a PIHA team came to me and asked to try out (I was drafted but refused to play for the team that drafted me), I would, but otherwise I'm not interested.
I did it completely wrong, but I'll tell you what I did anyways.
Many new pads have only an ankle strap, and no foot strap. My pads happen to have both an ankle and foot strap (Goes under the skate, right in the middle).
SO, I would lead the toe strings up the inside of the pad, then put on my first strap, middle of calf, then I would take the toe strings and tie them around that strap, as to get them out of the way completely. I found I didn't really need to have my toe strings tied as the boot of the skate was strong enough to withstand shots, and it isn't often I get to make a toe save in roller hockey anyways, as flaring out the butterfly, I found anyways, was hard to do.
Also, I used inline skates as opposed to those special goalie skates. I found that the inline skates with the high-low chassis helped me to C-cuts to get in and out of position really well, though I didn't ever actually use the goalie skates, so I don't know if they are easier to do C-cuts with or not, or if there's a different method used as a roller goalie.
I kind of had to just teach myself everything I knew about being roller goalie, and had to wing it more often than not...
I do the same thing with my toe strings when I play ball hockey, though shoes do not offer protection whatsoever from the hockey ball, and that thing HURTS!
That's about as wrong as you could get, haha.
One huge advantage of inline goalie skates over inline player skates, aside from the obvious protection, is that because goalie skates are lower to the floor, you're able to use the cowling to slide. It does take a lot of practice and experience to get used to doing it, but it's extremely useful for side-to-side one-timers. With a player skate you wont be able to use your cowling to slide whatsoever.
I've been searching the site for tips on lacing up. Great tip on loosening the toe bridge laces although I left mine on and it worked fine. I think the best move I made was generally loosening all of my straps. My old gear was closer to stand-up style so now that I'm trying hybrid it took all of the pressure off of my knees and ankles to keep things loose.
I'll have to try sliding on the cowling but it may come down to surface. Do you play on sport court?
I mostly played on sport court. You could also slide on a concrete flooring, but there's a third type of flooring that was like a rough spray-down flooring.. it was really weird.. you'd move SLOW AS HELL on it. Can't slide on that stuff for anything.
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