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UPDATE - I AM NOW DRUNK AND NOT RESPNSIBEL FOR WHAT I SAY OR DO TO HIM

Ah, the joys of family. I got the pleasure of a last minute notice that my sister-in-law was bringing her 5 year old granddaughter for 4 days. Awesome.

Wife decided to not listen to me.. again... and decided it was a good idea to let her brother in law say with us for Thanksgiving and bring his dog. My dog is 10 years old and has never had a another dog in the house. This was doomed to failure and I am beyond stressed because my dog keeps barking and his dog keep whining and this is not going well. Maybe my wife will learn to listen to me now... what the fuck am I saying... I know she won't.

I'd like to know what a more scientific test would reveal. I'd like to see them time a player on a lap of the rink and also through an obstacle course of sorts. This would have to be done after a proper warm-up on each type of holder obviously because switching from one type to the other requires a small period of adjustment to re-tune your muscle memory. This may not be very relevant, but I remember one of the skaters in one of the videos comparing his Bauers + Tuuk holders to VH boots + Marsblade holders.

Uh oh.

Even if the pros testing/endorsing them wanted to wear them, I'm not sure they could without getting league approval first. They're definitely not cheap, but they'd be more expensive to produce than most holders because there are more parts. They're also being produced by a smaller company in smaller numbers than the most popular holders; that also drives costs up. You'd definitely be limited to the proprietary runners; it'd likely be a stainless steel runner. No one knows for sure how they'll hold up over time right now. It seems like they've been testing them for a while now. It's not the same thing as profiled steel - it's allowing more blade to be in contact regardless of the profile. You could use a custom profile in conjunction with these holders. The same profile with these holders and traditional holders would allow for more steel contact in turns. I don't think they'll necessarily get more traction from players learning the game. They'll get traction from people willing to spend money to possibly gain a competitive advantage and that could be players of all levels. With that said, it'll be a niche product to start for sure; I view it as similar to Sprung in the inline world. I think the Sprungs are better than the stock chassis on most skates, but most players are fine with the stock chassis and aren't willing to spend the money to buy a new chassis. Most people are also comfortable with the stock holder on their skates and aren't willing to spend the money to swap it, but there are those who do and will. While I did spend the coin on the Sprung chassis for inline, I did that because I played ice first and was always searching for that ice like feel in inline (had already used the Tuuk Rocker chassis). For ice, I'd have to be shown that there would be a DRASTIC improvement with the new chassis to consider spending the money on the new chassis and getting it mounted. That's why I'm also in the wait and see camp on this, but the concept is interesting. Oh, and for those wondering why I compared this to the Sprung holder in inline vs. the Marsblade inline chassis; I don't have the numbers, but think Marsblade may have sold more to ice players who don't even play inline on a regular basis because it was marketed as a training tool.