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Was at stick and puck today and saw some guys wearing VH skates. One of them had their laces wrapped around the ankles, strangling the outside of the boot. I wanted to cry. :(

A young team got farther than even their coach expected in this series. They add a little veteran presence on the blue line and get another year older and they'll make a push next year. DeBrusk really showed something in this series.

What a crap ending to a great series.

@mojo122 the channel size vary, small .75mm, medium 1.0mm, large 1.25mm Reduce hollow 20% for small channel ,25% for medium channel ,30% for large channel. For instance using 5/8ths as a current ROH Small Channel Z, Now sharpen 3/4 add small channel ,this will give the same feeling as 5/8ths Medium Channel Z , Now sharpen at 7/8ths add Medium channel ,this will give the same feeling as 5/8ths Large Channel Z , Now sharpen at 1" add large channel, this will give the same feeling as 5/8ths

I'm baffled as to why some people make it their mission to persuade/dissuade others on how they should spend their money based upon something they've never used... but I won't go down that avenue. Instead, I'll give a first-hand, unbiased, point-of-view about my experience with VH Footwear skates over the past 4 years. To abide by the forum rules, I won't turn this into a review, but instead an overview. To preface this post, I've never been paid, sponsored, endorsed(bribed), nor influenced in any way to use VH/True products; nor am I "fan-boy". The only reason I even heard about VH Footwear in the first place was from this very thread! To be brief, back in 2014, I became a coach/instructor/rink-rat at a local rink. As I spent more time at this place, I realized that having proper fitting skates was absolutely necessary when spending 6+ hours on the ice per day (getting all those blisters, sores, cuts, bruises, bunions... the whole gamut). Back in the early 2000's, Ice hockey in my city was somewhat of an up-and-coming sport. Vastly different from what it is today. So finding a local hockey shop that still had their doors open became a novelty (had 1 shop at the time that closed their doors shortly after I bought my first set of gear). Fast forward to 2014, and at that time, there are only two hockey shops in my city. A rather dumpy, tiny shop inside the local rink and a Hockey Giant down the street. During this time, I went on a spending spree trying to find a brand, model and size that fit my feet, starting from: CCM 1152 Tacks, 10.5D (had to double sock for these babies), Supreme TO 8.5D, Reebok 9K 8D (two pairs after I broke the first pair within a week), Reebok 20K 8D, Graf ??? 7R, Supreme NXG 7.5C (these gave me tailor bunions and were fitted by the small shop inside the rink--big mistake), and Supreme MX3 8D. Thousands of dollars wasted trying to find a fit that didn't leave me curdled up in the fetal position holding my feet after skating for a few hours. Fed up, I went to my local Hockey Giant and asked, "I'm looking to get some custom Bauer skates". An HG employee states, "Uhhhhhh... we'll have to call a rep for that and it can take anywhere from 3-6 months or longer before he'll be in town to fit you. And, uhhh, no guarantee he'll even show up". In a last ditch effort, I began researching online forums. This is where I stumbled upon an ever growing post about Dustin Byfuglien using some custom hockey skates by a guy named Scott Van Horne. I wasn't completely sold, and waited a few months before I saw other members skates/heard their experiences. I took the plunge, traced my feet, and bought a pair. When they came in the mail, I was initially a bit disappointed in the craftmanship and followed that up with my subsequent negative response (pics are broken, but it was a reference to a bad weld versus a good weld) among others. After some clean up with some scotch tape, they came out pretty sexy. After a year or so of usage, I developed a few issues with the skates: Rusty eyelets and instep peeling on the left boot. I wasn't too concerned about the instep, as there was still material underneath where it tore, but the eyelets and rivets needed some TLC. I took them to HG, where they attempted to install new eyelets, but within a few days they came loose; and by this time, the Velcro on the tongues were shot and I needed to glue them together (red dots illustrate where I had glued the two pieces together). The stiffness in the boot became too flimsy for my skating style and, to pile even more to the list of problems, the rivets that were replaced by the rink shop, popped out like popcorn as soon as I took a puck to the holder (I did, however, use some nuts and bolts, which remedied the problem; full breakdown posted after the fact). Unfortunately, after a year after purchasing, I realized it was just time for another pair of skates. By this time, VH had made some updates to their custom skates. They also made some updates to their pricing. They started to charge customers USD and CAD, despite only operating out of Canada. This left a bad taste in my mouth because they didn't operate nor have much of a presence within the US, nor pay US taxes (their reasoning was that some of their materials came from the US, therefore, it was their right to charge international customers USD). I said, "No." And stated I would no longer support/recommend this company nor its product (even had someone claim he was the VP of VH Footwear contact me, but who knows if that was real). As such, I vainly tried to buy their closest rival, the Easton Mako. Unfortunately, the Mako skates left my feet cold after about 30 minutes of skating (I'm told that's a sign of poor circulation -- not enough width). I also felt a fair bit of rubbing down the outside of the ankle that I just couldn't fix. I just had to sell them and move on to something else. So, I tried some Apx2 skates in a 6.5EE, but it felt too cramped in the toe area, and around this time the original 1X came out, so I tried a 7EE, but that felt too loose lengthwise. Seeing that I was heading down a path of buying one retail skate after another, like I did above (at this time, still only 2 hockey locations, the local rink that didn't carry EE and the local HG that had a very limited selection of EE -- so it was a fair bit of guessing), I reluctantly decided to give VH another try. As mentioned previously, along with the price updates, VH made some updates to their skates. Along came a thermo-modable plastic toecap, rust-resistant coated COPPER (not steel) eyelets, integrated shot blockers (for me, rigidity was what I was most excited about) and an enhanced metatarsal tongue. Pretty much all the issues I had faced earlier, were addressed with this new update. I ordered a pair with the new updates. First thing I immediately noticed was that the craftsmanship was vastly improved. I didn't have to take scotch tape to the outside of the boot to clean up the skates. They pretty much came looking sex-waxed and ready for war. However, no boot is perfect. I did have to tweak the sidewalls for more depth, trim the tongue near the toebox so that it'll lay flat across my foot, and lastly mocked up a tongue tab idea, sent it to VH and purchased new tongues with tabs because over my overpronation was causing the tongues to slide toward the outstep which was causing some discomfort. 3 years later and to this very day, I still use these skates and skate in them at least 3 times a week at about 2-3 hours per session. They've been rock solid skate after skate after skate. And here's what they look like today, flaws and all. But like all good things do, they eventually come to an end. The skates have lost some of their rigidity, the tongues are absolutely shot, from time to time, the lack of depth of the forefoot area numbs my toes (usually the result of over-cranking the laces), the rivets are super rusty and look like they're holding on for dear life (we have 3 hockey shops in the city -- local rink, Pure Hockey, and a small mom/pop shop -- and I guarantee that they will mess up the rivet replacements, so I may poke one of you shop guys with VH rivet replacement knowledge and have you replace when the time comes), and the Velcros are starting to lose their tackiness. Seeing that VH has been bought by True, I took the plunge and ordered a custom pair of True skates. I was fitted at Pure Hockey by one of the best managers I've ever dealt with (super attentive, answered all my Q's, and went above and beyond what I asked -- great customer service... just wow). My main reason for ordering new skates was that if these ever failed, I'd be up a liquid chocolate infused creek without a paddle -- at least now I would have something to fall back on. If it's the same folks that are behind my current VHs that are making the True skates, I expect nothing but good things. But, but... I'll hold judgement 'till I get some mileage with them...

Thats the place to go in NYC

Westside Skate is apparently the skate mecca of NYC. https://westsideskate.com/ They're a True dealer.

Man, I remember watching an NHL player before practice, soak his feet in buckets of ice water for 15 mins so they'd shrink and fit into his custom made skates. I wont name the skates, but they rhymed with Sour Grapers.

Similar system, one change, better than TRUE because of that, but still not what the process could, or in @Nicholas G opinion, what it should be. It will NEVER be perfect out of the box! Further to my previous post, I was on the spot back in the day when Kor fitted Peter Forsberg. The skates were perfect; he didn't think so.

As the owner of custom Bauer skates I will echoe @JunkyardAthletic It took work to dial them in. Pain, punches and preserveareance. But the work was worth it and they are now far better than any retail skate could ever be. And I’d also bet, dollars to donuts, better than Trues.

I've been involved in pro hockey, in one way or another for 22 years. I post from professional experience in seeing these things first hand. Sure, opinions are like assholes; one is always bigger than another, however, NOTHING has changed with regards to custom skates. Ask Jeremy Roenick about his experience in LA with Easton skates and every skate rep being called at 11pm to be at the practice rink by 8am in order to fit him for skates. Your belief is that if you spend that kind of money, it should be perfect right out of the box. You'd think that would be the same whether you paid +$1000 or a NHL team paid $+900USD for the same. Unfortunately, there's a preconceived notion that custom skates should be PERFECT, and that's just not how it works. It certainly doesn't work with the TRUE brand fitting system and hate to say it, it will ALMOST work with the Bauer, but not 100%. I've seen one of the top NHL players IF NOT THE top NHL player receive skates from the company HE endorses and the skate was off! As a matter of fact, said player got the skates in last years playoffs and spent all of this season in last year's model skate (cue the Google searchers...LOL). I've seen a TRUE brand skate fitting. It is ANYTHING but perfect. I was invited to watch how it works and I wanted to kill myself after it was complete. It was that painful to watch and I felt bad for the fitter! What I came away with is that there's so much room for error just because of how the fitter has to move around. If TRUE had created a track with a tripod attached that the iPad could fit in and could slide around and capture all of the proper angles, I think that it would improve the fitting process and the final fit of the skate for the consumer. Would it be 100%, no, however, it might be closer than the "try and hold the iPad properly and walk around this poor bastard you're trying to fit, while making him/her stand in different poses to get the fit.