A goalie coach from Ste. Anne has been getting some attention from goaltenders in the NHL who have been trying out his new invention called “BLOK”.

Guy St. Vincent is a former professional goalie and now owns and runs Top Shelf Goaltending. He says back in his first year of pro hockey he broke his blocker side index finger. He notes these types of injuries are fairly common for goalies of all ages.

"A lot of the times we will go into making a save and the puck will deflect off the paddle of our stick or ride up the paddle of the stick and strike our index finger, that stands out pretty vulnerable underneath our blocker. We grip our blocker hand in kind of a trigger finger so it has that exposed knuckle that stands out a little bit."

St. Vincent says he has designed a rubber guard that straps to the goalie stick and deflects pucks away from the hand. He notes he came up with the idea many years ago when he got sick of the bruises and breaks and it is now coming to fruition.

"After I was done playing I ran into one of my good friends that I hadn't seen in a while, he was a product developer so I threw this at him. He came back at me a month later when I had completely forgotten about it and he presented me something on the computer and I thought it looked perfect. We sent it off to our manufacturer and two weeks ago we got our prototypes."

St. Vincent says the average NHL Goalie faces between 30,000 and 40,000 shots in a season with about 2,200 of those coming in actual games. He notes BLOK is designed to be used in practice to protect goalies hands for the majority of the shots they take. He adds a few high-level goaltenders have been testing it out.

"Currently Aaron Dell from the San Jose Sharks, he's been testing it. He has been wearing it through practice and pre-game skates and what not. I have gotten some feedback from him and he says it is absolutely awesome so that is good to hear. We actually have the St. Louis Blues organization trying it out as well."

St. Vincent says he has even sent one Former Steinbach Pistons Player Matt Rodomsky who has come back with very positive feedback. He notes it has been exciting to get feedback from such high-level players but BLOK is really designed for goalies of all ages and skill levels. He adds the next step in this exciting ride is to bring his new product to a big equipment managers convention in Austin Texas.