Smoother surface for hockey. Hockey knowledge not needed!

[mrsixstrings12]

I have a slight dilema here. I play street hockey with a bunch of people every week and my goalie pads are quickly getting ruined. We play on an abandoned tennis court which has a rougher "concrete" texture to it. Its tearing up my pads real badly and i was trying to think of a way to keep it from getting worse. My theories are:

Get a large piece of cardboard. Cheap and smooth. Probably would get tore up eventually.

Get a large piece of plexiglass (or similar material). A little more expensive, wouldnt get tore up at all. Would have a lip between normal surface and goalie area. Thought about maybe sanding the edges down to make it smooth as possible.

Under the thin coat of tennis court surface is plain concrete. i had an idea of tearing up the section where the goalie is and filling it with conrete or something and making it as smooth as possible. Unsure about this though due to it not being my property, abandoned or not, and not sure how difficult it would be to tear up the thin layer.

But thats it. any input or advice would greatly be appreciated! Maybe someone knows of a product that was actually made for this problem?

P.s. ive searched through some hockey forums but they all seemed to be dead, hence why i posted here

[2001Neon_LX]

A buddy of mine took a grey plastic and cut it into sections to fit along the inside and outside edges of his pads and used zip ties with the wire in the middle of them to hold the plastic on, seems to work not too bad other than having to replace a zip tie here and there.

[occasional demons]

Get a large piece of plexiglas (or similar material).

Plexiglas is not durable, and tends to shatter easily. Polycarbonate, or Lexan, is more what you may be thinking of here. It is bendable, and nearly bullet proof when thick enough. I have had plexiglas shatter just from trying to drill it.

[mrsixstrings12]

Plexiglas is not durable, and tends to shatter easily. Polycarbonate, or Lexan, is more what you may be thinking of here. It is bendable, and nearly bullet proof when thick enough. I have had plexiglas shatter just from trying to drill it.

Thank you for the heads up! I guess i shouldve made it more clear that i was thinking of getting the cardboard/plastic/whatever and laying it down rather than attach it to the pad. That way it wont be constantly smacked against the ground and whatnot. Looks like i have some experimenting to do!

[ducktapetg]

I think your best bet would be to do something to your pads because if you put anything down, people would complain when they can't score.

As a long shot, maybe some fiberglass resin or other resin. It is cheap enough and it would mark the goalies zone. Not sure how it would hold up to a stick smashing it though.

[Toast]

Are you using ice hockey goalie pads that are leather? They'll be toast in no time playing on concrete. Mylec does make a plastic/poly set iirc. BTW why not just join a league at the rinik in Murrysville? You and your buddies can set up a team.

[mrsixstrings12]

yeah im using ice pads. I dont actually play goalie on ice and my friend just gave me an older set of his for free, so i really dont mind hah the reason i dont get the street pads is cause you really cant go down in the butterfly in them. Ill have to check into that rink. I remember seeing it one day a long time ago.