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Just wanted to update everybody on these Labeda Slime wheels. After about 8-10 skates, the wheels have fall off the hubs on the front wheel, or any wheel I move to the front. (3 total). If you flex the wheel in your hand, you can feel each one have a little wiggle off the hub, but the fronts have completely come off during skates. The wheels end up horizontal over the front of your chassis, creating quite a struggle getting the wheel and axle off. I have photos if anybody really would like to see them. I contacted Labeda vendors but they don't get back to me. I'll be making the switch to Pure X now.

Hey all, We received news yesterday that one of our longtime members, @hellaavangard is currently battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma. John’s a great guy who has attended our events and I’ve met up with whenever he and his band are in town. He’s posted a GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/john-clardy-hodgkin-lymphoma-help?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

This makes a lot of sense and was something I was missing. Definitely can see how the loading can happen on acceleration when you are on the front of your skates versus steady state striding. As for skeptics and keyboard warriors, many people are curious, some are engineers, some like myself are in product and have a natural curiosity so these types of questions immediately come to mind. This is especially true in a market where equipment prices are through the roof and it is hard to tell if there is actually any appreciable increase in performance commensurate with the increase in price. No offense, just the nature of the discussion.

The wheel has hardly any wear, suggesting a manufacturing fault. I’d take legal action for a full refund, easy enough in the UK, no idea about your country.

It's also interesting watching the caps-canes game that the ads on the dashers are split 50/50 between the 2 teams not just the home teams ads

Thanks for the advice all. I think my course of action is to do the following: 1. Try the deeper cut on the 2nd pair of Shift steel out 2. If that doesn’t work then get one set of the Shift steel profiled to match the last pair of skates I was comfortable with (Tuuk Black Steel) 3. If that doesn’t work then get the Tuuk Black Steel mounted

Again, everyone has their own opinions. There's those who try/test something and form an educated opinion and then there are those who visualize/guess/assume and form an opinion. If you havent tried it, I can certainly assure you one thing, you are lacking data points and experiences that very well might change your opinion. So hard to put down or raise up any product/technology without actually having used it. A major pet peeve is people who barely try anything but seem to have an opinion of everything.. its the internet age of things I guess. So what I can say is a few things. If the clap skate had such a huge impact on the sport, and if Bladetech uses the exact same physics and principles, along with other physics and principles more related to spring technology, and if you see golf clubs, balls, shafts, running shoes, tennis rackets, and so many sports incorporating flex points, spring points, and that type of similar technology and physics, than clearly all of us are either right, or all of us are wrong. You can't really make an argument picking and choosing when physics applies and when it doesnt. Our product is geared more to the acceleration/agility regime, not so much top top speed. Clap skate is built around the linear impulse of momentum equation and maximizing time and surface area to maximize power transfer and becomes helpful at all speeds, although we operate on that too, we also operate on spring loaded mechanics. And when the strides are the most short and choppy, or "punching the ice" is where the most energy is wasted in the knees, and where our spring-technology benefits the most. And fortunately, this is where the game of hockey is played, in short starts and stops. Food for thought, no clap skate maker, no shoe maker, no golf club maker is going backwards in time and removing these "springs", they are in fact constantly improving and re-tuning them. Hope that helps!

Get the elbow straps adjusted to fit you better.

Its a combination of the STEP steel, steel profile, and boot design which is why most players go with a more shallow hollow when they switch to TRUE. I typically skate on a 3/4" ROH with my TRUE skates and during the summer in Arizona and Las Vegas I tend to go even more shallow. Before you immediately change back to your standard ROH I would try skating on the more shallow ROH a few more times. It takes a little bit of time to adjust but the benefits are well worth it.

I went the other direction. I spent the money I had been saving up for goalie pads on an espresso machine instead!

To be honest, quarantine has just had me shift what I’ve been spending on, and I’m still trying to pair down my hockey collection to a more reasonable size. When things do open back up around here I’ll probably get some shoulders and a new helmet by years end, but It’s just going to be using money from stuff I sell. ive really been paring down across the board

Huh, now they're all Canadian companies. That's a quick changeover and seems unnecessarily complex. But, I guess understandable they have to get all the sponsors in.

This must be a newer development/weight savings. My last conversion of Vapor XXXXs had a full outsole. I think once JR receives them, if he has any issues with the way they are constructed, he'll give me a shout.

Thanks for the input. I know it there is enough 'meat' around the end where the Sprung plate will go, my concern is that the very inner edge of the boot baseplate is almost hollow. Drilling through it doesn't seem like it will be stable at all. As far as general mounting goes, I just purchased the ModSquad mounting option and will be shipping them out to JR.

The reality of comp sticks is that sometimes they break super quickly and totally randomly. That's why they have warranties. I would venture to guess that everyone on here knows someone who broke even a stick that's known to be a tank. There's a difference between durability and fluke breaks. I bought 2 TPS tricore3s about 15 years ago or something (whenever they came out). One broke within a week or so, maybe 5 sessions (2 games, 2 practices, one pickup) judging from how often I played then. The other is still going strong and is my go to shaft. I have probably used over 100 abs blades in it. Both 75 flex, and when I broke the first one I must have weighed 135lbs, and now I weigh 195, and it's fine. (The shop warranted the first one BTW, but if it remember correctly they didn't have another one in Reg flex, so I opted for a different model, probably a redlite). My point is that durability shouldn't be judged by fluke breaks common to all comp sticks. In my eyes it's more about how long did the shaft and blade last on one that didn't just randomly snap. I never owned one, but everyone I know that uses them likes them very much. That said, should you drop to a whippier flex? That's your call really

Shock Doctor makes a hockey shirt that has grip material that supposedly helps keep the pads in place when the sleeves are rolled back.

What you say is extremely interesting. I use a slight forward pitch in my profile, and so maybe if I were to try these I should use a neutral one. I'm super curious to try this in the future. Thinking more about it last night, even if you take away the rebounding force, would there be more contact between the steel and the ice during the end of your stride (just like clap skates) which would help stabilize your stride. I also wonder if some people who weigh on the extremes (too little or too much) would see less of a benefit or even a detriment to their stride.

I received the Surgeon RX3 stick as a freebie from STX last April and decided on writing a review on this stick after a year of use. However, with the lock down along with the arena I normally play at being renovated I won’t be back on the ice until mid August or early September, so I’ve decided to write a review of the stick now because I feel as though it will start getting me back into things during the Summer. About me Height: 6’1” Weight: 160 lbs Shoots: Right Position: RW/LW Stick specs: X92 pattern/85 flex I’ve been playing almost exclusively in beer leagues with some tournaments sprinkled in for the last 10 years after a very mediocre minor hockey career. Luckily I’ve improved a lot since then getting to play with better teammates, while losing a lot of weight plus getting into shape. I might classify my style as a speedy, two-way, backchecking beer league hardo. My shot isn’t ever really a factor so I get a lot of goals by going to the dirty areas. Anyway, enough about me and let’s move on to the STX Surgeon RX3 stick. Again, this stick was free so I can’t really complain about the specs because it’s close enough to my preferences. The stick’s specs are an X92 pattern (P92, P29, W03 equivalent), at 85 flex. Normally, I play with sticks in the 75 flex range within the P88 family of patterns, but despite it not being my preferred specs I am familiar with them. I started using this stick mid-April 2019 almost exclusively until play stopped in mid-March of this year. I should also note that at first I did not cut this stick because I just never did, but after some experimenting with other sticks in July of last year I cut the RX3 down to around 57”. Look: 10/10 A black base with great graphics that don’t come off as too busy. Love the shade of blue STX uses as it really pops. It certainly stands out and wouldn’t blend in a line up of top of the sticks from every brand. Feel/Weight/Balance: 8.5/10 With the Surgeon RX3 stick, the first thing you need to talk about is the shape of the shaft. This six sided shaft, which is made to feel more naturally in the hands does what it is intended to do, but it is not something you would notice while playing. Many of my teammates were asking if it felt weird to play with as we are all much more comfortable with the 4 sided stick, again, I would say to them that it is unnoticeable unless you were trying to remain aware of the feel throughout the action. The Puregrip shaft is an eye-catcher and creates dressing room buzz, but in the end, it comes off as more of a gimmick because I believe the off-ice “natural feel” is lost on the ice with gloves on. This stick comes in at 425 grams at its uncut length and this stick certainly feels light, especially when compared to other elite level sticks. Unfortunately, the Puregrip fails to create an impression on the ice, the weight certainly doesn’t get forgotten on the ice, which certainly has to do with its spectacular balance. This stick does not come off as blade heavy (great coming off a CCM RBZ Revolution) and feels great regardless of where the lower hand is located. It is not the lightest stick I have ever used, but certainly one that distributes the weight, which makes it feel better. Would love to have tried a version of this stick with a traditional shaft because while I do not mind gimmicks it just seems unnecessary and may provide more support to the upper hand. Shooting and Passing: 7.5/10 I’ll start with the positive in this section, the passing. The blade of this stick has given me more precise passes while responding to the speed I desire and how hard I pass it. The blade works with me, which I really appreciate that in a stick, I believe a lot of companies try to influence shots with new tech bleeding into the passing, this could be me with no one else ever feeling this way. My shooting with this stick isn’t the best, but I factor this into the flex rating I have been using and my experience could have been a lot better if this were a 75 flex, not 85. I will say, even with a few inches cut off, it still plays closer to 85 flex so it is a whippier stick for those interested in it. This duel-kick stick (STX calls it Precision Flex II) is great for any shooter, however for myself, the lower kick was great for wrist shots and in tight, yet the upper kick zone came off as too stiff, therefore my already soft slapshots were almost non-existent with the RX3. Puck feel: 10/10 This is the best I have ever felt with a stick, ever. At no point have I lost feel for the puck during the play, and as someone who has to look down from time-to-time that really helps. When shooting on either side of the blade, I know where my soft shots are coming off of so they are not flubs or muffins, which I believe would happen if I were using a different stick with the same specs. Unlike the Puregrip, the Pureblade is genuinely pure and relevant to what a person wants with a hockey stick. Durability: 9.5/10 Prior to the lock down I was using this stick almost exclusively for a year and this thing has held up great. Besides the markings, etc.. chipping off from normal in-game events, I have not seen any real signs of damage, which is always nice. As for the blade, I always over tape the blade, whether it’s extra strips of tape over the toe or going above the heel, over cautious ever since the SuperTacks. I cannot give a true opinion on the blade, but it seems not to be too scuffed compared to other sticks where the tape gets damaged. If I had paid for the stick, the way it has held up has certainly proved it would be worth it in terms of holding up. Overall: 9.1/10 Had it not been for it being a stiffer stick than I am used to, I would proudly say this is the best stick I have ever used, but I can’t conclusively say that unless I acquire a 75 flex (don’t mind the pattern). The STX Surgeon RX3 is probably the first stick in the period where I’ve got into trying out different gear obsessively where I have stuck with a stick for a long period of time, which is a huge shock to me. At times I may switch it up for a back up during the game because it might change my luck, but I still come back to this stick because it performs so well. STX with its pure tech in the shaft and blade makes it clear they really wanted to create the most natural feeling stick ever. While the shaft shape doesn’t change much, I can’t fault them for trying because it makes sense the stick should be perfectly wrapped in the hands (look at baseball, lacrosse, tennis, golf), yet it does not transition over well into hockey and honestly made no difference. In fact, being square by the upper hand may be a good thing to implement in the RX4, or 5 if the former is too late to change as it could improve shooting mecaniques for some (nothing can save me). However, the natural feel in the blade is perfect. This is the feel every company should strive for and has actually improved my game slightly. Thanks for reading!