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Matters for a few reasons. First and foremost is the establishment of credibility in this community. When one speaks to their own expertise and qualifications some support of that is a reasonable request. You have, after all, been pretty outspoken. Second, is the fact that you stated that you were servicing certain teams when typically they are serviced directly through True. This bears some scrutiny and a follow up as to why the teams would use you and not the manufacturer. In the end, the community will decide whether it believes you or not and sharing more information about your store and your expertise can only help in that regard,

It's weird they had the plugs because the tracing process was the same for VH. I had MLX custom made in a wider boot. Possible that they took your specs and made them to an off the shelf boot. Mine were two different sizes though.

In my limited experience, baking and breaking in a skate compresses the foams a bit and should open up a little more room. And I would strongly recommend against using skates that are too big.

Mlx skates were off the shelf for consumers and didn't advertise as custom made but heat moldable and altered to feel like they were custom right? If so, then the tow plugs do make sense for them as they are giving the customer every option available to meet their fitting needs without actually making a boot from a scan or mould or even tracing.

How many other skates have you tried on? Before you settle on anything, make sure you've tried on every skate you can get your foot into. From my limited experience, scanners get you into the ballpark, but it's up to you and your fitter to get you dialled in. Sometimes the scan can be off. With that said, its genaerally better to go a bit small than a bit big. With small you can have the skates stretched and punched out to accommodate your foot. But what you can't do is shrink a boot. Also as a skate ages, the liner will compress and wear, and you may gain about a quarter size. So yeah, be a princess about your skate fit. You never know how what you'll find. I've tried on skates that were OK but then the next skate turned out to be perfect. Because, you don't want to deal with all the foot problems ill fitting skates can cause. You did a smart thing measuring your own foot to be sure about your sizing. For me, I use this sizing chart. http://www.hockeytutorial.com/uncategorized/ice-hockey-skate-sizing-chart-width-and-length/ According to the chart, you're between a 10.5 and 11.

Thanks for the clarification, Jeff. Dave - it would have to be as the team will still book the order through the manufacturer.

The foam in the toe box is reminiscent of MLX skates. When they were first released, they didn't have half sizes so they put a "plug" in the toe cap to decrease the boot by a half size. That never made any sense to me. I mean, we basically tolerate having our toes brush the inside of the toe cap for the benefit of having the smallest, lightest, close-fitting skate possible. Having a piece of foam to imitate the feel of brushing the toe cap in an overly large skate is the exact opposite of this concept. It didn't make sense with the MLX skates and makes even less sense now with a custom skate. I mean I love my VH skates but I'm frankly disappointed in your situation. Again I hope True make this right for you.

No problem. I totally understand your frustrations. The reason for my question about blade size goes back to my first pair of VH, 5 years ago. One of the many pieces of info that they asked for was current skate brand and size, and current blade size. Even though I wore size 7 Bauer with "263" blades, I wrote that I believed the skate boots were longer than they should be, but I had chosen that length to avoid having the toe cap pinch my weird, wide forefoot and toes. I also mentioned that I wouldn't mind going with shorter blades if the ideal boot for my foot was shorter than my current pair. Then I received VH skates that were the same length as my Bauers with "263" blades and just assumed they knew better even though there was a good 7-8mm ahead of my toes. The skates fit so well otherwise with the molding that I felt good about the skates. Three years later, when I saw that other VH owners had much closer fitting skates lengthwise, I decided to order a new pair. I sent several e-mails to Rob insisting on a closer fitting boot, asking him to throw out the data on my first boots, even specifically asking for "254" blades because I knew that "263" blades could not fit on shorter boots. My current VH skates are closer to a size 6 with "254" blades and fit perfectly. Not knowing what their thinking was at the time, I felt they might have made the boots long enough to fit the "263" blades that they thought I would be more familiar with. That's why I asked you if you requested oversized holders. I was just trying to figure out why they would have made you longer boots. But from your description, it sounds like True are really way off on this one and I hope they will make it right for you.

Not an expert but have to agree with the commentors here - Looks like a poor fit and that because of a poor fit (loose near the top of the ankle area) here's wrenching the crap out of the skate to tighten it up enough when playing. Seems like it's maaaaybe True's fault for making a poorly fit skate, but the OP should not have worn and played on these for 8 months. Almost immediately he should have noticed poor/loose fit. Shame because he says down below he's not even going to bother trying to get it fixed. Somewhat odd that True isn't offering to at least repair for free. Also, I say above about guys saying True doesn't make totally custom lasts anymore... this other person seems to think the same - "One of the shops I hang out at. Lots of rivet issues. There’s been some threads on here too about other wear issues. My guess is it’s biased to people complaining. Now that they’re not doing custom lasts (I’ve heard) I feel like I’m seeing people with more fit issues. Nick G in this forum has had a couple of pairs. He’s a good one to weigh in."

I'll be honest, I've been scorekeeping for 21 years now, and you can only be as accurate, in most cases, as the Ref cares to be. I scorekeep High School level and half the time I'm not truly paying full attention. I go by what the ref is telling me the goals and assists are. Most times I'll be lucky they give 1 assist and half the time its probably not accurate.

I used to have that problem. The issue was that my arch was further forward than the typical foot so it wasn't supported even though my arch is not very high to begin with. So most of my weight was on the ball of my foot and on the heel area since the skate's built-in arch is closer to the heel. Superfeet didn't work for me either since their arch is closer to the heel to accommodate the average foot. I ended up getting Graf/Sidas molded insoles which supported the whole sole of my foot in Bauer Flexlites. With my current VH skates the stock insoles work well.