A Year in Hockey... I hope. Part Two.

So, not too much progress.  My ankle is still on the mend, so I'm still waiting to buy skates- I think I know what I'm going to get, but have to try a few pair on first.  Being the obsessive I am, I've already sort of planned out the way I'm going to buy equipment, so I'm doing a lot of research about what's available.  After I get the skates, and have skated for a couple of months I'm going to look at sticks and gloves.  Then I'll give it a few more months to see how it all goes, and then start buying a piece of equipment a month or so.  I plan on visiting the local used sports equipment shops for the majority of my gear, but have decided on new gloves, a new helmet and probably new sticks.  Here's the thing though.  I'm short and stout, and will probably end up as a stay at home style defenseman.  I may have the potential to be quick.  I was a sprinter in high school, but that was nearly 30 years ago, and I may never get any speed back.  According to all the research I've done, I'll need a pretty specific blade- slight curve, probably a very slightly open face and a lie of about 4 or 4.5.  All the sticks I've found, though, are for either shit hot forwards or monster defensemen.  Huge curves, open faces and lies for guys who are 6'2" and bigger.  Man... And there's no online selector tool I can find.  You'd think that one of the big hockey equipment sites would have a tool to help narrow down what you should be looking for.  You know.. enter height, weight, level of play, position, type of stick and price... go buy these!  Nope.  There seems to be an in store system that you can use, but nothing online.  I guess I can only hope that when I go to look at skates, I find that they have the stick I'm looking for at the store.  Until then... I have a bunch of thrift store sticks I can mess around with.