My son plays hockey at the PeeWee level and I recently purchased a Bauer 9900 helmet for him specifically because I believed that the investment in protecting his head was well worth the extra money. My son also tried on the M11 helmet and wore it and the Bauer for a few minutes at the store, but ultimately chose the Bauer. Fine, I said, Bauer is a quality brand.
The first time he wore the helmet, he left the ice with a headache because he said that the helmet was putting pressure on his temples on both sides. I initially thought that the helmet just needed some time to “break the helmet in” or that maybe the cage was squeezing the temples of the helmet too tight.
In an effort to relieve the temple pressure, I ordered a new cage for the helmet. When this didn’t help, I ordered a new combination shield. Neither of these attempts helped at all, and my son consistently had a headache whenever he wore the “top-of-the-line” helmet.
In the meantime, I had several discussions with other hockey parents and was surprised to learn that several other players who owned Bauer 9900 helmets were having exactly the same problem! Pressure at the temple from the 9900. As recently as yesterday and overheard another parent complaining that the 9900 was hurting her son at the temples! This is not an isolated problem.
When I took the helmet back to the store where I purchased it to find out whether they had any suggestions about how to alleviate the problem, they told me that this is a common complaint with this helmet, but that they couldn’t do anything about it. If I had known that fit was a problem, I wouldn’t have purchased the helmet! Now I have a worthless helmet and have had to purchase an M11 to replace it.