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Every once in a while, I find something that I just can't say no when I see it. Now to find a pair of his gloves again. I'll probably make another post in a couple months, haha.

@Vet88 you're right - I completely read that wrong and thought I saw 'aggro skates with full ankle support'. Totally missed the plot on that one. @clarkiestooth I do teach skating, both Learn-to-Skate and powerskating. Edge control can absolutely come from an ankle control strategy, and some players use it more than others (McDavid with one eyelet down and loose skates). In agility and cutting movements, we speak of ankle, knee and hip strategies - the same can be said for skating, that different skaters utilise different control strategies. Your philosophy of teaching skating is different from mine, that's fine. Although I would find it hard to accept that 'skating has nothing to do with feet/ankles'. I come from a speedskating background with low cut boots and loved the Mako skates, and my philosophy towards skating is probably at the opposite end of the spectrum from yours, which seems to be solely global and not also considering the role of the ankle. @YesLanges I know you were replying to Vet88, but yes I do mostly agree with you. I will say that motor unit recruitment is the activation of contractile units in a muscle, so when the neural adaptations do occur, it is increasing motor unit recruitment to better control the ankle, which ultimately is increasing the strength based on the increased amount of contractile units activated. This is how I understand and interpret how motor learning and muscles work, at least. So yes, edge control changes are related to changes in muscle strength, because strength is a function of motor control, recruitment and activation. I think the bike riding analogy is not the right fit for my example of degrees of freedom, which has nothing to do with weakness. Also, I agree with you that the deterioration of skills over many years isn't solely the function of the strength of the muscles involved. @BenBreeg yes, a lot of semantics involved. I like discussions like this, it makes you think and connect with how others think in their head. I do agree with your experience - when I first tried skating with my laces undone, I had to fix my hip positioning. Ankle control was the last thing I worked on, because without fixing the hips, changing the ankle angles made little difference in my technique. Also, great discussion guys. I wonder though, has @Koopa got what he needed from our combined experience, or is just lost amongst all the discussion haha

https://spirit-of-hockey.at/MISSION-Inlinehockey-Skate-Inhaler-WM01-SENIOR The new missions are up in Europe.

Lots of nuance and semantics being argued. Let’s say it’s about controlling a system (the entire body) and that there is a minimum level of strength needed (it may not be that much and is not the sole contributor) paired with coordination of many muscles (the symptom may be unstableness at the skate but that doesn’t mean the solution is local). When i first started doing laces undone, the improvement didn’t come from my ankles as a gross motor skill, but first from the alignment of my body above the skate, literally where my head was which then kind of cascaded to where my hips and knees were. There was lastly though local feedback from my entire foot.

I don't really understand the analogy. In a hockey skate, your ankle/lower leg are bound. Again, there is no such thing as "weak ankles" when it comes to skating. I don't know if you've ever taught ice skating, but it has nothing to do with the feet/ankles. We don't even really consider them. Teaching comes from the head down, the edges/feet are the biproducts of proper body control. @YesLanges has it correct.

I would get black nylon fabric that would cover the area that contains the hip pad plus the foam around it plus an inch all around. It would be two trapezoid (or parallelogram) nylon pieces, inner and outer parts, that you would sew together on the left, right and bottom side. The top would be left open. Now, you have what looks like a flat, polygonal tote bag. Put the tote bag thing over the damaged hip pad area. Sew the top closed so it closes up the opening of the tote bag patch, and it connect to the pant. So you want to make the length and width larger than the 2-dimensional size of the hip pad area, to allow for the depth of the hip pad to fit inside. Does that make sense?

Alright thanks guys. FYI I'm designing some vectored drawings of shims and gonna have them custom cut in carbon fiber and TPU (2 different sets to see what I like more). Will let you know how it goes if anyone's interested.

Correct. I've explained this several times before, but what we refer to colloquially as ankle "weakness" really has nothing to do with strength; it's all about neurological learning as a component of the skill of balancing on edges. All of the suggestions about edge work and gradually loosening laces are 100% correct; they just have nothing to do with muscular strength. If it were about strength, experienced skaters coming back after decades-long layoffs wouldn't be able to recover most of their skating ability after only a few hours back on skates, because there's no such thing as a muscle that builds strength back like that in just a few hours or a few training sessions over several days. If you're interested in all the details, use the search function for the threads titled "Why No Laces?" and "Can Someone Explain This?" (Just search the term "neurological" to find those threads easily.) But you're going to have to make a choice between improving your skating quickly by just going to a stiffer boot or improving your skating much more gradually by doing the exact opposite, along the lines of staying with softer boots and/or skipping eyelets on stiffer boots. They both work, but you'll be a much better skater in the long term by doing it the harder way, which takes much longer. If you go the stiff-boot route, your skating will improve almost immediately, but you'll plateau out very quickly and never really become a great skater.

Only thing that you can sell me on here is a 2 minute minor for hooking. That's the only option here (if you are going to call anything that is).

Having just picked up a pair of TF9’s, I went 8R when I normally wear an 8.5D in Bauer. I don’t have abnormally shaped feet although my left foot is slightly longer than my right. My ideal size in Bauers is 8.25D, but when I buy retail I normally go with 8.5 because an 8 cramps the toes on my left foot too much. With the Trues, I was worried 8 might be too big and I’d have to step down to 7.5, then once I tried them on the 8’s felt too snug in the toes. However after baking them they fit damn near perfect and gave both my feet the space needed in the toe box.

Wow, you know a Bauer rep. I'm impressed...