Leaderboard

BOOM! Playing 2-3 nights a week year round I could easily justify the expense. It's about value. The retail offering fit me really well. The question becomes, why pay extra for something I don't need...

Being able to afford it doesn't necessarily mean being willing to spend it.

I think if you can't find anything at retail that fits well and doesn't cause you pain, then the only natural decision would be to go full custom. I skate with a lot of people who buy $1100+ skates, complain about the pain they have, yet refuse to pay the small fee to upgrade to a custom skate... It's not logical.

The trick I found that worked for me was to simply not use the first set of eyelets. It opens up the forefoot area where the toecap meets the boot quite a lot.

People also enjoy the instant gratification of taking new skates home the same day.

Because a lot of people can find comfortable fits for stock skates. Especially off the shelf Trues mold and fit so well the non-custom are fine for a lot of people. I suspect a lot of people need to actually just take time fitting their skates and trying things on. There’s a huge gap between ordering Vapors online because “Bauer is the best” without ever trying anything on, and going full custom. A pair of off the shelf $500 Trues would probably be the best option for a huge number of people. But the world too easily pushes the narrative of you need the most expensive things all the time no matter what.

Fully agree, it's like nothing else. They are more comfortable than some of my work boots that I've had in the past.

My guy is only opened on weekdays by appt only and is over 1/3 hour away. But this weekend my son accidentally stepped on concrete and we had to have the guy at the rink do them on Sunday. it took him several minutes to pull himself away from the football game and even acknowledge me. Then he just grabbed the skates, didn’t dress the wheel, did about 5 passes, and handed them to me without level checking. the fact that they were ok was pure chance, not skill. it might be time to get a Sparx for me.