An excerpt from the Globesports.com article by Sean Gordon:
In hockey, as with most things in life, new technology is usually a good thing — until it isn’t.
Take recent advances in hockey skates, which are now stiffer, more ergonomic and generally light years ahead of the blades worn barely a decade ago.
But Montreal Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau thinks the unyielding boots on his players’ space-age skates — typically made with fibres like carbon, Kevlar and graphite — may be a contributing factor to a rash of groin and hip injuries that has befallen his team.
Six regulars have been laid low with soft-tissue leg injuries — two hip injuries, four groin pulls — in the past six days.
Carbonneau said the lack of flexibility in the next-generation skates means that a player who catches an edge or a rut, or is simply off-balance, has a greater risk of pulling or twisting a muscle as he rights himself.