The Cat – OBO

This is my first real blog post for OBO and I hope it isn’t full of spelling errors (I’m English so cheap viagra canada colour isn’t spelt color!)

In the past I have modified gear and tried many makes of gear, but of course when it comes to innovation and design OBO are at the top of the pile, that’s the obvious bit out of the way.

That said I have now tasked myself (with OBO’s blessing) to modify the existing HotPants to make them better, it’s a hard task I admit but I’m up for the challenge. I’m doing this in the off season, the main aims are to sort out the upper thigh and inner thigh protection and throw in a little bit of extra adjustability, bob’s your uncle, fanny’s your aunt, hopefully this isn’t gonna be a faceplant!

If there’s anything that anyone wants me to try and do let me know, leave a comment on here or head over to fieldhockeyforum.com and send me a pm.

That’s all for this post but check this space cos this s**t’s gonna get real!

(P.S. I have the Chelmsford Summer League (Div 1) to test my additions etc. If any of you are playing in it I’m the keeper with the fluorescent helmet, hard to miss I know)

Hey everyone this is obviously my first post on the resources (most of you probably know the username/name from FHF)

I didn’t want to write this review as part of the competition as I kind of see it as more of a rant than a review, but hey enough talk time to stop boring you people.

Right well it all started one training session when I coped a rather nasty shot on my right shoulder, the body armour did it’s job of protecting me from serious harm. However I started feeling more and more uneasy with shots in the shoulder region to the point of flincting when a ball went there.

Fearing that I had lost a lot of confidence I decided to try other brands of equipment in shops to see what felt better and a bit more solid around the shoulders. I was amazed to find that nothing on the market at the time had solid shoulder protection. I found my old ice hockey style protector (mercian shoulder caps) and thought “hey I wonder how they would work together.” Safe to say having both on was silly.

I then decided modification was the key, I then chopped off both shoulders of the Robo armour and carefully removed the shoulder caps off the mercian shoulder caps. I then removed the hard protective foam across the top of the remaining parts of the BA, making the BA look like a vest haha.

Next came the most painful and bloody part of the modification, yes ladies I can sew and I did sew the mercian shoulder caps on to the BA. Looking rather messy I made some covers for the shoulders which I later removed cos they was PANTS!

The last thing I did was resew the arm attachement velcro or whatever it is to the shoulders to allow the arms to be attached again.

Finally my mod was done, I felt like a tank but as fast as a shit off a shovel. It also gave me a massive confidence boost not only in my goalkeeping but in life as it gave me the drive to get properly creative again, which really helped my job too (web design.)

I hope I entertained you for a small amount of time, or if I bored you sorry, but you could have clicked off!

🙂

Here are some links to pics of the BA. Just to let you know I now no longer use the BA but my good friend and back up keeper is wearing it and believes its the best thing since the pull cap on baked beans.