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Second year doing this - Helping Through Hockey. Donations and raffles support Survivors of Abuse in Recovery (aka SOAR). Always like the mix of sports and charity and try to do it as often as I can. First pick is from the Inaugural Event (June 2018) This pick is from last month (June 1, 2019). With the colors, it was easy for me to go with my Pittsburgh SummerJam mitts and shell haha.

Here are some sightings at the dev camps As2 Ribcor The Vapor FlyLite no longer a team GB exclusive Maltese throat guard Easton still getting love

Again,.... skate alignment is MUCH MORE complicated than cycling cleat alignment. On a bike, the foot travels through a circle and is always in contact with the surface through which the power is being transferred. So, alignments are subject to pretty rudimentary physical principles. Even still,... although I know you feel like you made substantial increases in power output with alignment changes, it's actually pretty atypical. The placebo effect is almost impossible to eliminate and I've seen just as many cases when riders power got worse due to a poor fit adjustment. The literature and even the physics themselves don't support the claim that substantial power improvements can be gained with most traditional biomechanical alignment changes (mitigation of soft tissue injury maybe,.. but power, not so much). There is no doubt that the order of improvement would come from 1) aerodynamics 2) gross changes that would optimize hip angle to maximize power output while maintaining aero position (this is an optimization problem),.... then..... way way way down the line would be like 10) cleat alignment. Granted, improvements to a simply horrible position or fit can yield improvements. In general though, performance improvements due to most biomechanical changes to a rider who is already a trained rider are very much oversold and, ... hence... snake oil 😉 My point with this rant is, the oft cited notion of "scientific" approach to bike fit using biomechanical tools to improve performance is mostly hogwash. ** OTOH, any other type of locomotion (e.g. running, skating, skiing, etc) is subject to many more degrees of freedom and, as such, it is much more difficult to get generally applicable rules that apply. So, the issue here is that there may be gains to be made due to the enormous degrees of freedom, but it's difficult to get away from the "whack a mole" scenario. I.e. if you make a change how do you know it doesn't have an unintended consequence that could be detrimental? All that being said, it's plausible that a sound biomechanical approach could identify issues that if rectified could result in improvements. There just isn't enough info right now to determine one way or the other. Simply using force plates to measure jumps and gross asymmetries isn't enough info imo. We shall see as more info comes out. **I know this rant seems off topic, but Bunnyman alluded to the approaches used in cycling and I thought it would be good to point out some of the misconceptions regarding these approaches and how it could inform this topic.

I’m on the seafood diet. I see food, I eat it. Has not yet negatively affected my performance.

Looks pretty damn sexy if you ask me.

Howdy, I don't want the officiating to improve. Makes me feel a lot better when I totally blow a call reffing beer league. Mark

I though it was rather interesting, and not really off topic. Maybe a bit tangential, but a worthwhile perspective on an analogous system. It’s always interesting to see how these things have played out in other arenas if something new but familiar comes along.

The OP does say the feet are sliding forward whilst skating. At the best that is a length issue which no insert is going to fix, wadding in the toe is more appropriate. However he also says "necessary for growth" and that, to me, is the million dollar question. Definition of how much is too much growth?

This is exactly the point. The first established procedure is to try the insert. If that is unsatisfactory, then the boots will be remade. OP seems to be angry that they would not skip directly to step 2, before even trying step 1. And now that he's been called out, he refuses to try step 1 at all, therefore eliminating the possibility of step 2. There's a significant difference between "The inserts won't work" and "I tried the inserts and they didn't work". Even if he's upset that the skates weren't perfect the first time and didn't want to use the insoles as a cheap fix (which seems to be the case, and is understandable), it's easy to just play along and say the inserts didn't work. My guess the 'more" to the story is he reached a stalemate when he wanted the skates remade and True said to try the insert first which he refused out of principle.

Just a wee bit more complicated aligning skates vs cleats on bikes though. Just sayin'.

That actually makes a HELL of a lot of sense. Some insoles are two to four size ranges (i.e. 7-8 or even 9, counting the half sizes), but you would get a general idea. At least you’d narrow it to a small range. In that vein, if you have the insole (OP may not have it), you could measure the insole with a brannock devise. It would most likely be slightly larger, but again- ballparking it, so to speak. Depending on the age of the skate, you may or may not have it on the outsole, but it may be on the INSIDE of the outsole.

Anybody have a chance to try these out yet? tried them on today, fit great, but not sure about the tpu outsole. Not saying its bad, just don't know. Have been using full composite boots for 10+ years now

I still don't understand what it is though....

But the people who buy are saying "screw that, move on". Both sides have valid points. However what seems to be overlooked by one half is it's up to the consumer how they want to spend their money. Some people are willing to deal with a little BS, others aren't. Me, if spent that kind of cash on a custom made skate and it was off by that much, no way I do business with that company again. If they didn't fit and I got that same response from True, no way I go back, not in a million years. Still baffles me how many screw ups there are on an item made specifically to the customers foot. Maybe they should have refined their process before putting time and effort into a holder.

Started a new side business, and it’s doing decently well.

I've been skating in Ribcor 70ks for a few months now. I have a very narrow foot and, as a result, hadn't skated in a CCM since the VacuTack days. I, too, was skeptical about the claims that the skate would accommodate all foot types. But so far I've been pretty happy. The boot is definitely softer than most of the other to-of-the-line offerings from Bauer & CCM, but - for a beer league consumer - I think it's a solid option. It doesn't require the same kind of extensive break-in time that some of the other options do, which is great for those of us who might not be skating enough to get through the break-in period quickly. I do worry a bit about how fast the skates will break down. But, honestly, at this point in my playing "career" I'd probably rather have a skate that's comfortable for most of its life and then breaks down, then a skate that's too stiff and then too soft (my experience with my last pair of Bauers). FWIW, I am a big fan of older model skates and had been attracted to the Nexus as a more traditional boot, but found it much too wide. The Ribcor offers me some of the same feel, while offering a better fit for a narrow foot. To the earlier comments, I lace mine pretty tight, but - because of the construction - I find it comfortable to do so.

Couple of decent shots from a game a couple of weeks ago...

In my second pair of Trues. Went Black with Tuuks and Step Black Steel this time, first pair was Black/White.............The Black Steel is incredible. After Trying the True/Step Holder went back to the Tuuks. There is a slight weight difference.

2 Shots from last nights game here in Doha

I don't get many photos of myself since I'm usually the one taking them (I'm a league photographer and shoot photos between shifts in games I'm playing in), but every now and then a teammate grabs my camera and manages to catch me (I've slowly been trying to train a few guys haha).