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You'd probably have better luck using steam to soften things up for bending a large amount, but either way you'd probably wind up needing to refinish the wood.

I have a pair of customs for an AHL player that were returned. 7.5 length, E/A width forefoot/heel, thin tongue, oversized toe cap, 271 holders. Sounds like they could have been made for you 😉

PSA about the new Catalyst skates for those that will be ordering online without trying them on in-store. We have noticed they fit roughly 0.5 SMALLER than other brands. This is the opposite of the previous generation of TRUE TF series skates which fit 0.5 sizes LARGER than other brands. For example, in the TF9 I wear a size 7, in the Catalyst 9X I wear a size 8, in Bauer/CCM I typically wear a 7.5 (excluding the new Bauer Mach and CCM ASV-Pro skates, which I wear a size 7.0) My suggestion is to try them in-store and not order online if possible.

I'd say less consistency between brands and even between models in the same brand are to blame. Different models have different "fit profiles" but, on the whole, I blame it on overall Quality Control just going downhill like most things now a days (insert old man Simpson yelling at cloud image here). Manufacturers just don't care about quality like they used to in so many industries, including hockey gear.