Leaderboard

The first sentence aside, I agree. Where do people think the weight reduction of top-end sticks comes from? Magic? No; they have less material (or potentially different, more performance-enhancing material). The lower tier models are going to be heavier because they have more material, but that also tends to make them more durable. It's not likely a linear relationship between cost and durability, but top end sticks are definitely squeezing out every ounce of performance they can for a market where performance is more important than durability. Diminishing returns at the top end, but if you're a pro then squeezing every bit of performance you can at the cost of every other factor is well worth it. All that said, the low end has improved DRAMATICALLY over the years. If I were to guess, I would suggest the cost of giving the lower end sticks much of the tech/materials as the high end has evened out quite a bit. Or put another way, the gap between the low end and the high end is much less today than it used to be. People often lament the fact that sticks haven't really gotten that much better lately, which may be true. But I think what they're not factoring in is how much the low end has closed the gap. As an aside, I have always kind of wondered why players on a PK don't at least consider opting for something that may be heavier but more durable so you don't have the sticks exploding trying to clear the puck. They always seem to break at the worst times.

I've been following True skates and the threads here on MSH for a while now and finally picked up a pair of Catalyst 7s from my local Hockey Monkey store yesterday. I finally found a store close to me that had them in stock to try and I'm glad I did. These fit amazingly well on my feel and feel almost exactly like my Makos, the best skates I have ever worn. These were so comfortable right out of the box, I could have skated in them without baking. This has been a long journey for me... I have a weird ankle with pronounced inner ankle bones that sit pretty far forward and on most stock skates, it touches or comes close to the end of the padding and some even touch the eyelets. Even then, I almost always have to have them punched out as well. This has always made it extremely difficult to find skates that didn't kill my ankles but still give me proper support. When the Makos came out I finally found the Holy Grail of skates for my feet. I have a pair of the original Makos and also picked up the Mako 2s when they came out as well... I was in heaven. And then Bauer bought them and we all know what happened after that. I kept skating on my Makos for a few years and then actually stopped playing hockey for the past several years and just played lacrosse all year round. During that time I sold off all of my old skates except the original Makos but now that I'm back into playing again, I had made up my mind that it was time for new ones. I started looking into the Catalyst last summer and figured that I'd try them on in one of my local stores when I had the chance. Well, the Makos started giving me trouble as my ankle bone finally worked its way through the padding and was causing sharp pain. Pain I'm all too familiar with from prior skates. I went to try some on and couldn't find any in my size anywhere. Ultimately, I had a local shop repair my Makos with new ankle padding and bought me more time with them. Then yesterday I walked into Monkey Sports and they had them in my size... tried on a couple pairs of Catalyst 7s and a couple HZRDUS 7s. The Cats fit me absolutely perfect... I couldn't believe how well they fit. The toe box, width, ankle...all of it fit my foot perfectly. My ankle bones lined up nicely on the size 9 but were a little too close to the edge on the 8.5s. My toes touched the toe caps, just resting against them. They offered to bake them to make sure and the 9s still fit perfectly and after baking the toes now feather the cap. I was kind of surprised my foot didn't slide back even further. I kicked my heel in pretty good and they did the shrink wrap method to bake them. Regardless, I'm totally psyched to have a pair of skates that fit my feet so amazingly well... I had to come here and make this post. JP