WO1998027834A1

WO1998027834A1 - Protective garment

Info

Publication number: WO1998027834A1
Application number: PCT/CA1997/000986
Authority: WO
Inventors: Steven G. Wagner
Original assignee: Bauer Inc.
Priority date: 1996-12-20
Filing date: 1997-12-19
Publication date: 1998-07-02
Also published as: CA2193545A1; AU5472698A

Abstract

A hockey goaltender upper body pad (10) (protective garment) is adapted to facilitate the defensive stance and movements of the goaltender while providing a sufficient level of protection against puck impacts. The upper body pad (10) includes an adjustable neck, contractible leg interface portions (70), a scalloped catch-arm clavicle floater (30), and a bent blocker arm central floater (32).

Description

PROTECTIVE GARMENT

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to protective equipment for a hockey goaltender, and more particularly to a more ergonomic design of upper body pad for a goaltender.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The general function of a goaltender on a hockey team is simply to prevent the puck (or ball) from entering the net. To accomplish this task, the goaltender may catch the puck with his glove hand or may block the puck with his stick or with his body. Depending on the level of play, the force with which shots against the net are taken by the players on the opposing team may be quite large. In order for the goaltender to be able to block such shots without being injured, a significant amount of protective equipment must be worn.

Part of such protective equipment is a padded garment usually referred to as the upper body pad. This garment bears a slight resemblance to the armoured body suit as worn by medieval knights. It comprises a series of segmented pads covering the forearms, elbows, arms, shoulders, clavicles, chest, upper and lower abdominal regions, and back of the player; some of such pads are integrally formed in the garment, and other are attached to it and together by various means . To date, such upper body pads have been designed around the model of a human player standing straight up with arms at his sides and elbows facing rearward. Thus, such upper body pads conventionally are symmetrically constructed about a vertical mid-line (corresponding to the mid-line of the player) with right and left halves that are identical or nearly identical, and arm portions with segmented pads designed to accommodate rearward facing elbows .

From analysis of the positioning of the goaltenders' s body and his movements during a hockey game, it has been realised by the present inventors that current designs of the upper body pad are inadequate since rarely, if ever, during play does the goaltender stand straight up with his arms at his sides. On the contrary, the typical stance of the player is in a crouched position holding the goalie hockey stick in one hand (hereinafter referred to as the blocker hand) and the other arm extended in mid-air with a gloved hand (hereinafter referred to as the catcher hand) oriented to catch the puck. The blocker hand is positioned over the stick such that fingers curl around the stick with the back of the hand facing forward. In this position, the elbow of the blocker arm extends laterally outwards rather than rearwards. Conventional upper body pad designs can cause blocker arm fatigue as they exert a constant force towards an arm position with the elbow facing rearward. Although such force is slight, its effects become appreciable over the length of a game. Increasingly goaltenders are taking a more active role than previously and are thus sometimes required to shoot the puck with their stick rather than merely block or deflect the puck. In such cases the goaltender will place the hand of his catcher arm low on the stick (adopting a grip similar to that of a regular hockey player) and the catcher arm to generate and transmit force to the stick and the puck. The movements he uses to generate such force are similar to those of a regular player and thus require him to twist the upper portion of his body. During the course of the game, however, the goaltender will only be twisting to one side according to whether he is right handed or left handed. Conventional goalie upper body pads are not designed to take such twisting motion into account, and thus tend to inhibit such motion somewhat, especially in the shoulder area. Finally in the crouched positioned, the effective length of the goaltender' s mid-section, i.e. its frontal height, will differ from what it is when he is standing straight up. With conventional upper body pad designs wherein the goalie crouches, this will cause his thighs to push upward on the bottom edge of the upper body pad and shift the whole pad upwards with respect to the player. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an upper body padded protective garment for a hockey goaltender, comprising a series of interconnected pad sections for covering the shoulders, thorax, back, abdomen and groin regions of the wearer's body, said garment further including a protective collar, shoulder cap pads and arm pads, wherein at each side of the groin region pad section the garment includes arched pads for protecting the joint between the upper thigh and the hip, said arched pads comprising partially overlapping pad sections arranged so as to be relatively moveable from an extended position to provide an increased area of protection to a more fully overlapping position thereby to accommodate movement of the wearer to a crouched position without the thigh exerting an undue upwards thrust on the front of the garment.

The sections of the arched pads extend from the groin region upwardly to overly the hips of the wearer and taper in height towards the groin region. These pads comprise an outer pad that is flexibly attached along its arched upper edge to the garment and underlying inner pad which extends downwardly of the outer pad and has an upper edge flexibly connected to a web. The only web having an upper edge that is flexibly connected to the garment in the same region as the upper edge of the outer arched pad. With this configuration the pad sections can be pivoted from a downwardly extending generally vertical attitude to an upwardly projecting angulated attitude without providing any undue upward thrust on the front of the garment, this pivotal movement being accommodated by the flexible attachment of the outer pad and the flexible nature of the web which carries the inner pad.

The blocker arm structure of the garment is configured to lie in an orientation corresponding to a normal attitude of the blocker arm when the goalie is in the normal defensive stance. In other words the elbow, rather than pointing rearwardly as is done in existing protective garments, is angled laterally outwardly. The blocker arm structure includes a pair of tapered floater pads in the elbow region, these floater pads being angulated with respect to each other and each tapering towards the inside of the elbow.

Preferably there is a secondary front pad in the form of a wide collar that overlies the sternum and clavicle regions of the wearer and has arched sections standing over the shoulders. The secondary front pad has a division therein angled downwardly upwardly towards the glove arm side of the garment to facilitate movement of the associated arm in a puck shooting action. The collar overlies on opposite sides floating domed shoulder caps and on the glove arm side the collar is concavely recessed to accommodate forward movement of the associated shoulder cap.

Other features of the invention will become apparent from the following description and the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention is provided herein below, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a front elevational view of a hockey goaltender' s upper body pad of protective garment of the present invention;

Figure 2 is a rear elevational view of the protective garment shown in Figure 1 ; Figure 2A is an enlarged fragmentary sectioned view taken on the line 2A in Figure 2 in the direction of the arrows .

Figure 3 is a right side elevational view of the protective garment shown in Figure 1; Figure 4 is a left side elevational view of the protective garment shown in Figure 1;

Figure 5 is a plan view of the protective garment shown in Figure 1 ;

Figure 6 is an underneath plan view of the protective garment shown in Figure 1; Figure 7 is a schematic front view of the central floater portion of the blocker arm of the protective garment shown in Figure 1 ; and

Figure 8 is a schematic front view of the central floater portion of the blocker arm of a prior art garment, Figure 8A showing the prior art floater pads in relaxed condition and Figure 8B showing the prior art floater pads in the position of use.

In the drawings, preferred embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example. It is to be expressly understood that the description and drawings are only for purposes of illustration and as an aid to understanding, and are not intended to be a definition of the limits of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to the drawings generally, the upper body pad or protective garment 10 includes a primary front pad 12, which includes a lower abdomen section and belly pad 14 and a chest section 16. The primary front pad 12 is flexibly attached through connections such as adjustable straps 22, 24

(Figure 2) to a back pad 18. So attached, the primary front pad 12 and the back pad 18 form a single "bib-like" garment to be worn around the goaltender' s torso.

The primary front pad 12 is positionable over the goaltender' s thorax and abdomen area and is securable to the goaltender' s body via the straps 20 and 22, as shown in Fig. 2. The straps 20 and 22 pass through loops 24 and 26 respectively in the back pad 18 which is positioned over the player's back generally along the spine. A secondary front pad 28 is provided configured in the form of a wide collar to cover the goaltender' s upper chest and clavicle areas. In the preferred embodiment shown in the drawings the secondary front pad 28 is provided in the form of two non-identical clavicle floaters, one 30 on the catcher-arm side of the body, the other 32 on the blocker-arm side of the body. In another embodiment (not shown) the clavicle floaters 30 and 32 could be integral with one another.

Attached with flexible connections, (not shown) to the primary front pad 12 are two moulded shoulder caps, the one 34 on the catcher-arm side of the body, and the other 38 on the blocker-arm side of the body. The shoulder caps 34 and 38 are positionable directly over the goaltender' s shoulders. The blocker-arm shoulder cap 38 is similar to those of the prior art. The catcher-arm shoulder cap 34, however, has a breast portion 40 which extends from the shoulder forward along the chest of the goaltender and downwardly to the lower end of clavicle floater 30. The purpose of the breast portion 40 is to compensate for the loss of the portion of the catcher-arm clavicle floater 30 as compared with those of the prior art, and give the goaltender the protection which he would otherwise have lost .

The catcher-arm clavicle floater 30 is configured to better facilitate the use of the goaltender' s catcher arm in shooting the puck. As the goaltender twists his body in a puck-shooting motion, the upper body pad's catcher arm shoulder cap 34 (described in detail hereinbelow) will shift forward in relation to the body and will twist around the shoulder towards the chest. The outer edge 36 of the catcher-arm clavicle floater 30 is concavely sculpted so as to not hinder shifting of the catcher-arm shoulder cap 34 as previously described. Furthermore, the line of separation between the catcher-arm clavicle floater 30 and the blocker-arm clavicle floater 32 is not located over the centre of the sternum but rather is laterally shifted to a location over the catcher-arm side breast of the goaltender. In this manner, where, because of the movement of the catcher-arm, the catcher-arm shoulder cap 34 is caused to contact and displace forwardly the catcher-arm clavicle floater 30, the movement of the player will be much less inhibited owing the reduced mass and volume and accommodating shape of the catcher-arm clavicle floater 30 as compared with those of the prior art . The blocker-arm clavicle floater 32 is somewhat similar to those of the prior art, with the exception of the portion which extends, laterally of the sternum over the breast to the catcher-arm side of the body. Optionally a connector pad (not shown) overlying the divide between the clavicle floaters may be employed to give added protection to the goaltender in this area.

Referring to Figs. 2 and 5, the secondary front pad 28 is secured to the back pad 18 by an appropriate releasable and adjustable fastening means such as by laces 74 threaded through holes 76. Thus, it is possible for the goaltender to adjust the size of the neck opening by simply untying the knot on laces and retying it in a different relative position. This feature is important as some goaltenders wear neck protectors, some wear throat protectors, and some wear neck and throat protectors; the lacing arrangement allows the neck opening to be adjusted to match the size of the goaltender' s neck and surrounding protective devices.

Referring to Fig. 1, attached to the primary front pad 12 directly under the shoulder caps 34 and 38 are the catcher-arm 42 and blocker-arm 44 sections of the garment 10. These arm sections 42, 44 are attached using flexible connections such as fabric seams (not shown) . Each arm section 42, 44 is uniquely designed for the different tasks performed by the respective action of the hockey goaltender.

Referring to Figs. 2 and 3, the catcher-arm section 42 of the garment 10 is in the form of a "sleeve" which extends downwardly towards a player's wrist. Several unique pads are incorporated into, or attached to, the catcher-arm section 42, including a biceps pad 46, central floater pads 47, a disc pad 48, an elbow pad 50, and a forearm pad 52. Adjustable straps 54 are provided to fasten the arm section 42 to the goaltenders arm.

Referring to Fig. 4, the blocker-arm section 44 of the garment 10 is also in the form of a "sleeve" which extends downwardly towards the player's wrist. Several unique pads also comprise the blocker-arm section 44, although such pads are different from those which comprise the catcher arm section 42. The blocker-arm section 44 includes a biceps pad 58, central floater pads 60, an elbow pad 64, and a forearm pad 62. The central floater pads 60 are designed to take into account the fact that for the most part, the blocker arm occupies a bent position with the elbow jutting out sidewards away from the body. In this respect the central-floater pads are constructed so that the various sections form an angle as seen in Figure 1, bent to an extent that corresponds to the normal position of the goaltender' s blocker arm. Illustrations of the central floater 60 as compared with that of the prior art are shown in Figs. 7 and 8. The prior art floater pads 60a have parallel ends and are shown in the relaxed condition in Figure 8A. However the normal position assumed by the stick arm of the goaltender is bent at about 30 degrees at the elbow as shown in Figure 8B, and in this configuration the pads 60a are compressed to a degree as indicated by the shaded areas in Figure 8B. To maintain this angulation of the arm a continuous force is required to keep the pads 60a compressed, and this can be tiring. Furthermore to provide adequate freedom of movement to the stick side arm, at least an additional 30 degrees of angulation must be possible to provide a full range of movement of at least 60 degrees. However with the shoulder pad 60 of the present invention, to move the stick arm to an angulation of 30 degrees will entail only a relatively minor compression of the pads 60. In other words, owing to the bent conformation, the required range of flexion of the central floater pads 60 is 30° as compared with 60° for the square floater pads of the prior art . As clearly shown in Figure 1 , the floater pads 60 are laterally tapered towards the inside of the elbow. This shape along with the forearm portion is designed to accommodate the blocker (not shown) .

The areas of the front pad below the floater 30 including lower abdomen section and belly pad 14 (Figure 1) comprises a series of segmented pads 68 interconnected by extensible means such as a stretchable fabric. The shape and positioning of the segmented pads 68 are such as to facilitate the twisting movement of the goaltender when he is shooting the puck. In this respect the pad segments of roughly diamond shape, the size of the segments increasing from the blocker-arm side of the body to the catcher-arm side of the body, and their alignment sweeping upwardly to the latter side.

The part of the lower abdomen section and belly pad 14 which interfaces with the legs of the skater comprises a flexibly contractable portion such that when the goaltender assumes a crouched position the contractable portion can contract but the relative position of the remaining portions of the upper body pad will not change.

In the embodiment shown, at each side of the lower end of the front pad section 12 there are arched pad segments positioned to cover the joint between the hip and the upper thigh of the wearer. Specifically, on each side there is an upper arched pad 80 which is curved and tapers in the lateral inward direction and a lower arched pad 82 of similar outline to the upper arched pad. The upper arched pad is flexibly attached to the lower end of the front pads 12 through a curved seam 81. The lower arched pad 82 as best seen in Figures 2 and 2A is similar in outline to the upper arched pad and is connected through an arched seam 83 to a tapered fabric web 84 which has a rougher edge is flexibly secured along the seam 81. As indicated in broken lines in Figure 2A both the upper and lower arched pads 80, 82 can be swung about the upper arched seam 81 through contact with the thigh of the player when the player assumes a crouched position. In moving to the position shown in broken lines in Figure 2A, the upper pad 80 falls about the upper seam 81, whereas the lower arched pad 82 falls partially with respect to both seams 81, 83. In any event, no undue upwards thrust is applied to the remainder of the front pads when the arched pads 80 and 82 are displaced as described.

The curvature of the arched pads 80, 82, and the seams 81 and 83 generally correspond to the curvature of the front part of the goaltender' s upper thigh and are readily moved to the position shown in broken lines in Figure 2A when the goaltender assumes a crouched position.

It should be appreciated that although the disclosed body pad garment of the invention is especially designed for hockey goaltenders the same general construction could be adapted for hockey players in general and players of other sports.

The above description of preferred embodiment should not be interpreted in a limiting manner since variations, modifications and refinements are possible within the spirit and scope of the present invention. The scope of the invention is defined in the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

CLAIMS :

1. An upper body padded protective garment for a hockey goaltender, comprising a series of interconnected pad sections for covering the shoulders, thorax, back, abdomen and groin regions of the wearer's body, said garment further including a protective collar, shoulder cap pads and arm pads, wherein at each side of the groin region pad section the garment includes arched pads for protecting the joint between the upper thigh and the hip, said arched pads comprising partially overlapping pad sections arranged so as to be relatively moveable from an extended position to provide an increased area of protection to a more fully overlapping position thereby to accommodate movement of the wearer to a crouched position without the thigh exerting an undue upwards thrust on the front of the garment.

2. A padded garment as claimed in claim 1 wherein said sections of said arched pads extend from the groin region outwardly to overly the hip regions of the wearer, and taper in height towards the groin region.

3. A padded garment as claimed in claim 1 and claim 2, wherein the overlapping sections of said arched pads comprise an outer arched section having a convexly curved upper edge that is flexibly attached to the front of the garment and which overlies a second arched pad section of similar appearance, said second arched pad section having an arched upper edge that is flexibly connected to the lower edge of a web, said web being flexible and having an upper arched edge that is attached to the garment front in the same region as the upper arched edge of said first arched pad section, the arrangement being such that said first and second arched pad sections can swing angularly forwardly with respect to their attachments to the front portion of the garment, without exerting an undue upwards force on said front portion.

4. A protective garment as claimed in any one of Claims 1 to 3 wherein said garment includes arm structures on opposite sides thereof, one said arm structure constituting a blocker arm structure and including arm pads which are configured and oriented to receive the corresponding arm of the wearer in an orientation where the arm is angulated outwardly from the body at the elbow at an attitude corresponding to the normal defensive stance of the goaltender.

5. A protective garment as claimed in claim 4 wherein said blocker arm pads include in the elbow region at least two floater pads which are angulated with respect to each other, and which taper in height towards the inner side of the elbow region.

6. A protective garment as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5 including a secondary frontal pad comprising a wide generally flat collar which overlies the sternum and clavicle regions and which has arches extending rearwardly over the shoulder regions, said collar being divided along a line that is angularly offset towards the stick side of the garment to define a stick side segment that is moveable around the remainder of the collar.

7. A protective garment as claimed in claim 6 wherein said collar at opposite sides overlies domed convex shoulder cap pads, said stick-side section of the collar having a concavely recessed edge in register with the associated shoulder cap pad to facilitate forward movement of the latter, said shoulder cap pad having an extension which projects downwardly under said stick-side collar section.

8. A protective garment as claimed in claim 6 or claim 7 including an adjustable neck protector positioned behind said collar, said neck protector being adjustable in a generally vertical direction.

9. A protective garment as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 8 wherein the interconnected pad sections covering the thorax region are arranged in rows of generally diamond shaped pad sections, said rows being oriented across said garment and upwardly towards the stick side shoulder thereof.