Passau Hockey is a custom goalie gear brand based out of Chambly, Quebec, owned by Alain Beaudry. They specialize in goalie sets (pads, glove, blocker), ball hockey sets, chest protectors, goalie pants, goalie bags, neck guards, and knee guards.
In the goalie coaching community, Passau is known for creating the first ever goalie coaching specific knee guards, which are designed for demonstrating movements on-ice. The internal padding is made using density foam with a tailored concave pocket to ensure the proper stability while demonstrating butterfly pushes and kneeling on the ice in talking to goalies. The front section is constructed from a piece of jen-pro synthetic leather which allows easy sliding. The interior uses a mesh material to enhance its drying speed between uses. The best goalie coaches we worked with growing up used these state of the art knee pads, and eventually Passau’s goalie knee guards would be worn in the NHL by the likes of Curtis Mcelhinney!
The History
As stated on their website, Passau has been a Canadian made and manufactured company since 1985. They pride themselves as working with their customers directly from their sales and service team, and operating their production and design fully in-house.
Before branding themselves as “Passau” in 2010, for 25 years the company manufactured gear for the brands Sherwood and Bayard. The rebrand takes its name from the town of Passau; one of the most prolific centres of weapons manufacturing in Germany prior to the Renaissance. Passau swords and armour became known far and wide for their high quality, and as you will see, the rebrand was fitting.
The first designs of their gear came in-house and from their factory located in a Montreal suburb. Starting with the distribution of their first produced set, the company has always taken the time to work closely with distributors and directly with the pro goalies they manufactured for, such as Patrick Lalime (Ottawa Senators), Jocelyn Thibault (Chicago Blackhawks) and Kim St. Pierre (Team Canada 3-time Olympic gold medalist).
Though since becoming Passau they have not had their pads in the NHL, the company has been incredibly successful in their goalie neck guard department. Jake Oettinger (Dallas Stars) has worn a Passau neckguard on and off for a few seasons, as has Scott Wedgewood (Colorado Avalanche) and Jeremy Swayman (Boston Bruins). Many PWHL goaltenders currently wear Passau neck guards as well!
Ball Hockey
With the re-emergence of ball hockey, the company decided to dive into the challenge and work on dedicated equipment for the sport. In 2019, they launched a brand new ball hockey goalie equipment line. The accessibility of the position appealed to the brand, and now, 6 years later, they are the world leader in ball hockey goalie equipment all over the world.
Their ball hockey technology emerges from the enhancements of built-in toe sliders to improve sliding ability, reinforced glove “baskets” (a deep glove pocket made with high resistance ballistic nylon), and built in UMHW plastic sliders for the blocker and wrist area of the glove, so goalies can slide better while flat on the ground or play a paddle-down style more efficiently.
Our own “Retro LA Kings” Passau’s review:
We at Goalie Guru got our own set of Passau’s used last year, and have worn them relatively consistently ever since. They are incredibly light, especially given they are nearly a decade old, and have little wear.
The pads kick rebounds out like modern day Bauer pads, and the blocker rifles pucks to the corner with the sound of a gun shot! The strapping is also incredibly modern for its time. We can only imagine the quality of Passau’s current iteration of product, let us know your experience below!
