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It CAN help you. It could also hurt you if you went with a profile that works against you. The problem with the current state of profiling IMO is there are too many, not enough empirical data to make recommendations, and definitely few experts available to the end user to help make decisions. Add that it is extremely expensive to test many profiles and that I think describes the current state.

What is skate profiling Everything you need to know about skate profiling in the link above. My story. I went from a single 11' profile sharpened at 5/8. To something called a "Quad 0.5" which is a 8'-10'-12'-14' profile sharpened at 3/4. It was the greatest thing I have ever done to my equipment. I was faster, more agile and more stable on my skates with this one change. The difference was night and day. After all these years it felt like a miracle. I became a better player over night just by changing profiles. No joke. I will never go back to single profile again.

I find a good old game of tag always works. It's simple, the kids understand it, they don't use sticks as crutches, and it's motivating (I mean who doesn't want to win at tag). It's amazing how kids can just pick up skating techniques cause they want to get from point A to point B in tag. They don't think about it...they just do it.

I'll be looking over their roster once the draft is done.

The 3.1's from STX are a decent piece. Though I must admit, I returned mine. I didn't like the way the front was cut and the way the straps landed felt weird to me. I ended up with Vapor 2X shoulders. No complaints other than them being a bit stiff. They fit better and were more mobile than the other pads at that price point. I tried the Vapor X2.9's on and I did like the fit. However, the protection in the back looked a little lacking. Nice pads though.

There have been some studies. I'm sure some people here will be able to point you in the right direction. Two things I took away from the one study was: 1) Just because you feel better doesn't mean you are skating better. Thought that was kinda interesting. It was why they had to measure change versus feeling it. 2) I think out of the profiles they tested (they only tested a few) they found the dual profile 9.5'-10.5' to have the best results which is a lot like the Quad 0.5 which is a 8-10-12-14 profile.

Possibly, but I would not consider those "key assets" to be very equivalent. For example, Ovechkin, the face of the franchise, is different than a declining Braden Holtby (.897 in his last season with the Caps). My opinion based solely on speculation is that term is likely to be the sticking point between Ovi and Caps, if there is one.

I haven't used the Stark pads, but came across them and the company in another thread on this site a couple years ago and thought they looked interesting. It's a Quebec based company that was founded by Michel Paul who also founded MIA and used to work for Warrior and Sherwood in high level positions. I'm very happy with my Verbero Shield pads (which are based on the Farrell pads I used to own); so, haven't had a reason to try the Stark pads. Here's a thread from a couple years ago discussing a few men's league shoulder pad/padded shirt options (the closest thing to the CCM U+ CL mentioned would be the new FT4 Pro pads):

Man, THIS!! I was just wrapping my head around quad profiling and now there’s the ellipse. At $50-ish a pop, it is not cheap and I simply ruin my steel if I keep trying out new things. What would be great is if there was a rental program that allowed people to rent different profiles to test them out. More upfront cost for the profiler, but I’d imagine happier customers at the end of the day.

Agreed, or chase the coach or anything where there are unexpected changes of direction, acceleration, etc. I think my son may have gotten better at public skate with friends as much as anything formal. Keep it fun and they won't even know they are learning!

I have Warrior Bentley's I got at Dunham's for like $25 max. All I need out of my shoulder pads is general coverage for random puck or stick and light weight/low profile/cool.

I have the STX surgeon 3.1 shoulders and really like them. Light, mobile, breathable, all that good stuff. Hockeyreviewsca (aka user Hills on here) had a glowing review of the new FT4 shoulders from CCM on their Instagram page the other day.

Lol, kind of. Problem with the Cobra is the exposed screw that gathers water and rusts.

@boo10 @oldtrainerguy28 So basically a Graf Cobra holder? 😉

I knew that would work out well. Not a fan of any of the other Quads.

In the '90s it was like the higher the flex, the more manly you were. Aluminum sticks, 100 flex, etc. Completely ignored flex in some search of ego or something. I think stick technology has evolved so much that you can now let the sticks do the work for you. Takes some adjustment depending on the sticks and your body type, mechanics. Over the years I've gone from nose height on skates to chin height. And I've dropped from 77 flex to flipping between 65 and 55 Gaudreau pro stocks. I'm 5'7", 145 lbs.

I used the Warrior Projekt for years and it served me well. You can still find a few on Sideline once in a while. I picked up a True XC9 last year, but have only used it twice due to the covid restrictions in my area. I will finally be able to use it again this week. Compared to the Projekt, it's a little bulkier and more protective, but is still fairly light, mobile and well ventilated. The other girdle I was seriously considering was the Covert. I think the Covert is a good choice if you already tried it and like the way it feels. I probably would have picked it up, but came across a great deal on eBay on the True girdle. For shoulders, I love my Verbero Shield pads with the caps removed. They're very adjustable, modular and super mobile. https://www.verbero.com/products/shield-hockey-shoulder-pads If the Verbero Shield was no longer an option, I would consider these: https://starkhockey.com/products/dc9-stark-naked-shoulder-pad

That's the cheapest I've seen them (at least in the States)

Did not realize the DX was on clearance, thanks for the tip! Have been wanting to check them out for a few years. Does anyone know if $99 is the lowest price out there?

I think the 1/2 your weight formula isn't bad for those who've never picked up a hockey stick before... you need some sort of starting point. But of course, finding optimal flex is way more nuanced than that, especially now with all the different types of sticks, release points, etc. I grew up playing with aluminums which were like 100 flex (I didn't know any better and those aluminums sure looked nice!), and I could shoot hard, but I would have to put an insane amount of effort into the shot. I now play with an 80 flex. Anything whippier, catching passes is too loosey-goosey for me and I can't deal with it; just annoys me too much. I was trying out a 70 flex for a while, and I could rip really nice wristers with minimal effort, but I hated the feel of catching a hard pass or taking a one timer, just too much flex. So 80 is where I land for the "feel" I want. With that said, the only time I change my flex is if I play forward (I'll drop to a 75 flex), or I'm playing against higher level players who are better with their sticks/puck battles, where I might bump my flex up to 85. But typically, I stick with 80. Over time you figure what works for you. That's really the only way to do it. And yes, you'll have to spend money on lots of sticks to try out, but then again, this is MSH, where everyone owns like 50 sticks anyway...lol.

All excellent points. Prior to delving into profiling and making adjustments skate fit is the number one thing that needs to be done. 2nd is blade alignment. You could tinker all day on profile with a good fitting boot but have a badly mounted holder that would ruin everything. See it every day. From NHL guys and NCAA girls that I would work every summer.

Thanks for the great suggestion. Picked up a pair of Alpha DX today on clearance. I remain intrigued by the STX, but getting these for the same price and being able to try them on made the difference. I preferred the Tacks to the other CCM and Bauer offerings (thanks for the recommendation, xstartxtodayx), but found the Warrior to be more flexible

So you like them?

What about the rest of the boot? If it's just the tongues you don't like, have you considered swapping the tongue? The last "innovative" Bauer tongue I had was in my Vapor 8's and I couldn't stand the lack of flex so I sliced the top layer of pleather, which made it much better. That's not an option in this case, but if you have old tongues lying around, it might be worth the try.

A profile will help you to get to where you want to be, but it's not magic. In general, it's not going to fix anything. It's just a tool to help you get better. It just makes it easier to do somethings while making it harder to do others. It all about give and take and finding the right give and take for you as an individual. One way to think about it is like car tires. Snow tires will help a person drive in the snow, but they won't save the person from a ditch if they're a reckless/terrible driver. BUT to get that grip in snow, you have to sacrifice durability and performance while driving on dry roads. IMHO, if you're going to diagnose an issue, first you need to know what the proper technique for of doing something is. Youtube is a great resource. Second, take video of yourself skating and compare yourself in the video to what the proper technique is. Three, identify, the flaws in your technique and practice to correct those flaws. While practising take note of what things are giving you trouble. After a period of time, if you don't see any improvement, figure out an adjustment to your blades that you think will help nudge you in the right direction. Then rinse and repeat. This is what I did. I experimented a lot. To get to the profile I'm using now, I practised to get better, and I made maybe a dozen incremental changes to my set up that got me closer and closer to what I needed. All the while, I was practising to address my flaws by improving myself. But always, it took time to evaluate and assess the profile and myself. Here's a link about profiling that I found very useful. It goes over profiling, the various profiles available, and what they do. https://issuu.com/elinmalmsten/docs/script-tryckfilus

Interesting. I had to look up the rules for UFAs and the expansion draft. https://soundofhockey.com/2020/11/12/breaking-down-the-seattle-kraken-nhl-expansion-draft-rules/ It's a possibility that the Kraken would want to pick up Ovechkin and Ovechkin would accept their offer. Ted Leonsis is known for letting go of key assets, like Barry Trotz, Braden Holtby, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if they lowball Ovechkin on a future contract and Ovechkin accepts an offer from another team that has the cap space.

Matthews stick is pretty short so he's kind of forced to have his hands closer together vs a longer stick. At the end of the the day stick flex is whatever you are used to. You can train yourself to adapt to use a stiffer or whippier stick. So the pros and cons are essentially not that important. I would say it's more important for a younger player to start out with a stick that can actually load properly and then it's all preference once they have built the foundations.

What’s the trade off or differences in a stiffer holder vs softer. I assume stiffer give you better power transfer, but do you lose something?

Howdy, Not sure if anyone really cares, but the TF7's are working out well. Put a profile on a new set of steel that matched what I had on my previous Makos (Zuperior S) and I'm finally back to basically never thinking about my skates. I'm sure some of that is the additional time in the skates... I've got 14 skates (reffing and playing) in on them now. At this point, my toes aren't QUITE brushing the end cap. I do feel a ridge under my right big toe especially... Like a step where some material meets or something like that. I haven't pulled the laces to try and see what's going on there. I thought about maybe trying to smooth that out with a die grinder or filling an area with epoxy or something to make it less of a sharp transition. Its fairly minor though, so I might just keep ignoring it. Otherwise no hot spots or rubbing or whatever. I'm guessing that change from the first skates is a combination of the foams/padding breaking in more with use and moving the tongues down in the skate. Pretty happy with these things! Mark (Just so nobody interested needs to dig back... I went from 7.5 regular width Mako M8's (probably should have been in wides) to 6.5 regular width TF-7s. My take is that the True skates are marked around .75 size listings smaller than 'standard' and are also a bit wider/more volume than the old Vapor / "fit 1" type things though the mold-ability may let them work for narrower feet as well)

Give me balance over minimum weight any day.

Another option by Verbero: https://www.verbero.com/collections/protective/products/shield-player-shirt I use the shoulder pads and play throughout the summer with them never felt overheated. We don't have AZ heat on a constant basis here in the Mid-Atlantic but we get some pretty warm days during the summer.

Oh Snap, Biz Markie dead at 57.