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Here are some pics of my TRUE lid, size M with an L Bauer Re-AKt cage.

He’s going for the Cawlidge cage hang look 😁

Cramping in the instep, especially underneath, can also be caused by tying the skates too tight. Too much pressure on the top of the foot and cut off the blood flow and cause that cramping. Lace bite is another symptom there, and can be combined with the cramping, but isn't always. Try tying the skates looser, especially right over the top part of your foot. Another cause could be poor arch or heel support. Your foot is having to flex to maintain support and balance, so it's tiring out and cramping. You could try different insoles, like Superfeet. Also, cramping like that can be caused by too much extra space in the toe cap. You lift or curl your toes if the cap is too high and the result is fatigue and cramping. They sell little foam pads called Powerfoot (iirc) that stick to the top of your toe cap and fill the space, keeping your toes down and flat.

It is pricey. But it's also 13 hours of ice plus another 6-8 hours of off-ice video review and chalk talk. If you take all the instruction you're getting and combine it, you're talking $30-35/hr which is about what I'm paying per game down here. And that's not counting the personal jersey, socks, materials, and banquet meal, plus some beer and appetizers you receive. So it's really more like $25/hr which is pretty good for the level of instruction you get. The coaches have coached/played at a decent level (one used to be the HC of a D1 Big 10 women's team, another used to work for player development for Hockey Canada, among others) and there are enough of them that you do get some pretty personal attention. I'd like to see them knock off a day - 2 hours of ice and maybe $100. You'd still get plenty of instruction, but it wouldn't be as tiring (by Day 4, you're usually toast) or expensive, especially if you figure the extra night in a hotel.

Good overview here: https://www.hockeystickman.com/blogs/hockey-stick-alerts/retail-pro-model-hockey-sticks-bauer-ccm-and-warrior Note that for Warrior, Pro and Pro Team are different, with the Pro Team being two steps down from top of the line retail stick. I wish I could find some QRE Pros in my specs as I keep breaking QREs but I love them so much.

First time I've ever played in a tournament. Won the first game Friday night 2-1. On Saturday we lost the first game by a score of 3-1 with an empty net (I'll get to that in a moment). Saturday night we beat the eventual champion 4-3 in a shootout (I'll be getting to that one as well). The team that won the tournament actually had two games they won with a score of 10-2. We ended up not making it to the championship. We were tied with another team for points, and goal differential, and ended up breaking the tie with a head-to-head (the team we lost to so they owned that tie breaker). Now for those notes... if we had won the third game in regulation rather than the shootout, we would have had the second most points and played in the championship. Beyond that, if we had NOT pulled the goalie in our 3-1 loss, we would have also owned the goal differential tiebreaker from a 2-1 loss and still made the championship. Oh, hindsight on the decision to pull the goalie... I never in a million years would have thought an empty net goal in the second game would have ended our run... All in all I'm pretty damn proud of our team. Being eliminated on the THIRD tie-breaker shows we played well enough to win. Knowing we also beat the eventual champions meant we very well could have taken the whole damn thing. That said, it was kind of nice to get to go home Saturday and not play on Sunday (at least, until my usual league game!) What a crazy week. Hockey Wednesday night, Softball Thursday night, hockey Friday night, hockey twice Saturday, and hockey Sunday night. I'm pretty sore.