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Taping your shin pads is simple. Your goal is to hold the pads firmly in place. When a puck is blasting your way you want your pads to stay put! Most instructors strongly suggest clear tape!
First of all, clear tape is transparent which means that you will not cover up your team colors. Second, poly tape stretches. It will mold to your leg for a firm fit. Having passed this on, we still use white tape over our shin pads. (old dogs, old tricks?)
This is the most often used technique:
Go directly to about an inch from the bottom of your shin pad. Again, wrap a few times around your leg.
There are other ways to tape your pads. If you find one that you like better, stick with it.
Wrap em tight and hold your ground.
Here's a suggestion sent in from Michael Jakubowski:
Take the last inch or two of the tape, and fold it back on itself. This will leave a small tab on the end of your tape job, which is easy to find, and makes removal of the tape easy as pie !!
Martin J. LeMoine of North American Hockey tape sent us some great reasons to choose poly tape. (His company manufactures great hockey tape)
1) The elasticity of
the poly tape keeps the shin pad tight as calf muscles expand and contract
through the skating stride.
2) The elasticity reduces the possibility of cutting off circulation in a
few ways.
-
Tape is usually applied in a warm dressing room and out on the ice becomes
cold, therefore contracting. -
Tape is applied when leg muscles are relaxed then during competition muscles "expand".
3) Poly tape is available in clear so it goes with any uniform. Poly tape is also available in a variety of colors to suit any uniform. Overall, the colored poly tape looks better on socks, particularly darker colors.