Vet88

I put it like this - when are you making the most mistakes? When you are learning. Training, regardless of the frequency, is pointless if all you are doing is repeating the same mistakes over and over again. If the skater is unbalanced at the start, extra stiff skates, more training etc does not address this, at least in a quick time frame. Sure, skate for 10 years and you will slowly improve. Or you can fix your alignment issues and start to skate better from the beginning. As to figure and speed and any half decent skating teacher, they should haul your ass of the ice immediately and start fixing your alignment with holder movement / shimming if they look at you and see you aren't aligned over your skates. Both figure and speed worked this out years ago, hockey tried with MLX then it got buried. And from many other posts in this forum and others, skaters have commented about going to camps run by ex NHL players and other qualified trainers and them asking players to undo their laces. It doesn't make things worse, it just makes it harder until you learn to control your muscles. Ironically those who pronate really badly get the most benefit instantly because of the feedback they start to get from their feet with laces undone as opposed to the quasi ski boot approach and lace up as tight as you can. Been there, done that, coached and seen dozens of skaters instantly improve with it.

If you had asked me this 3 years ago I'd have said this is true. But today imho it's all opinionated bs, just like my comments following. Let me put this out there - IT'S NOT THE SKATE. It's you and your bio mechanics. It's as simple as this even though bio mechanics in skates is a complex issue. If your bio mechanics are correct you can skate in anything - even clods with a frame bolted to them. Stiffness, heel lock, volume, length, forefoot width, profile, hollow etc are all secondary, you don't need this to be anywhere near perfect to skate well. What you need is good body alignment over the skate blade. Yes, stiffer skates will generally help you to skate a little better but they will not TEACH you to skate better. If you want to skate better fix your bio mechanics first, make sure the holder is aligned central to your foot / ankle / knee / hip alignment. Then shim for ankle / knee / hip deviation. This is the quick fix but it comes with some issues, especially for beginning skaters and how their body adapts to skating over time. Or learn to skate with your laces undone, stop using the boot as a crutch / excuse and teach yourself how to balance over the blade. Even holder alignment becomes less important. Add in strength work for legs and core and then you wont care what skate you are in as long as it is comfortable on your foot. Age, sex, size, weight, skating experience and equipment are irrelevant, anyone can learn to do this. Downside is you have to put in the time and effort and it is a long term development, upside is that over time you create the base to become the best skater you can possibly be.

Eyelet extenders, these are the fix for volume issues if everything else about the boot is ok. It's not hard to make your own especially if you want single or 2 hole extenders. Otherwise there are 3 hole ones you can buy.

Have a watch of this, it's long at an hour and 22 but there are some real nuggets of knowledge in it.

+1 for this, I got exactly the same guidance at a ref course from the guy who was the head ref for the Canadian junior league. And you can practice this as you ref games. Pick any point in a game and pick a player, then at the start of the next play recall the number and colour. As you keep at it you get much better so that it starts to become second nature. Then add the supposed penalty call so you get all the elements together.

Unless you have volume issues and or lace bite. Then, outside of customs, it's one of the few things that will keep you in your skates. http://greatsaves.org/skate_lace_extenders.html

You need to talk to the LHS and work with them. Take physical measurements of your foot then compare this to the scan data AND the additional comments / info the LHS sent to True. If this all correlates then the LHS need to ask True why the boot differs from the info supplied. Work out how much longer / shorter the boot should be, where it needs to be narrower / deeper, cut differently etc etc. I have seen cases where True have misinterpreted the LHS supplied data and made the boot wrong. Mistakes happen, it's a fact of life. And I'll say it again - Both at the scan / measuring stage and at the boot fitting stage, it's really important to have a fitter who knows his stuff. This will reduce the chance of errors when they are made and to recognise that the boot isn't right at fitting time and to provide the assistance you need to get it fixed. 6 months down the track and they are still tinkering with the boot to try and get it to work, that isn't a good recommendation of the LHS imho.

There are a lot of examples where the skate has been made wrong because the scan data was either wrong or interpreted incorrectly (a lot of this does depend on the skill of the fitter, the better they are the better the chance of True getting it right). In all of the cases that I know of True have remade the skate using feedback from what is wrong with the current one to ensure the remake is correct. On the odd occasion this hasn't worked but generally the 2nd time around they get it right.

Do goalie boots come with shot blockers built in? If you added these (as you can add them to player boots I assume you could add them to goalie boots) then they would beef up the boot considerably.

Interesting as I'm one of these customers. Durability? I gather you would liberally paint it on so you get full penetration into the eyelet?

You can get those and others on android, just search in the play store. For example I've used CoachNow on a Nokia Sirrocco phone and the slow mo is good at 8:1, you can add feedback etc and then post to the space or group or player you are working with. If you want to clip the vid I use Lightworks on a pc and then can post to a lot of different media, it's free and does just about everything you would ever want to do when editing.

Creating a pocket in the heel for a bump is really hard to do unless you have the right tools or the material on the inside of the heel has enough thickness to make a pocket. If not the latter (first skates I dd this on were pro spec apx2's that had very thin inner heel material), the heel is a very reinforced, circular area and it takes a lot of pressure to make it move. Typical punches don't work because they actually push the outer area of the punch inwards in the heel whilst you get a little bit of movement in the middle of the punch ergo no result. You need a punch that is shaped liked the heel for the punch to work or you can do this: I made a frame that clamped and locked the boot into the middle of it and attached another frame that sat outside the quarter panel where I wanted the punch to occur. Then I used a c clamp to pull the heel area at that spot out with heat added. You need a lot of pressure to get the heel to move so you have to be careful here with the heat and pressure or else you can distort the shape of the heel. This worked ok but it is a slow process. I now have access to a 3D printer and I print up a punch according to the boot size, heel shape and position of the punch. Good luck with the tissue process but I wouldn't be holding my breath, heat and pressure will most likely give you the best result.

Because they make mistakes, even after repeated attempts at remakes. He has every right to be concerned. What I don't get is why the customer is not more involved in the "remake" process, surely True want to get it right next time??? How hard would it be for True to tell you "we are going to do this, this and this, do you agree?" and the customer signs off on it. I'd rather have the remake take a little bit longer because of extra communication than have it done asap. But maybe that's just me showing my age and preferring to "do it once, do it right." Instead the remake disappears into a black hole and you just hope to god it comes out the other side ok. And to give True their credit, most of the time it does as long as the information they are receiving is correct AND correctly acted upon. But when it goes amiss you end up in situation like smu is in and its still not right after 3 attempts.

Haha, I had to do a double take of that picture. At first glance I thought, jeez, someone left the nets out and it snowed really really hard overnight. And then I saw the bottom bar.... Jokes aside, that looks and sounds about as close to heaven one could get. And you can be legally happy whilst doing it, sigh. It sure as hell beats the 2 rinks we have atm, it's 35 degrees outside and the plant can't keep up, the zamboni cuts the ice and 20 minutes later there are still pools of water over half the rink. Puck work is just shite and you have to saucer every pass just to make sure it gets to the player!

+1 for Konixx. I can point you to 220lb player who I supplied a lot of wheels to over the years. Anything he used he destroyed really fast as he is an aggressive elite player who skates inside heavy. Then I convinced him to pony up the extra cash for Konixx, night and day diff to addictions etc. Yes they are expensive but you pay for what you get.

2.1's are around 5mm longer.

sidelineswap, web site for selling things. I sympathise, I reckon I just looked at my 9ks and then 20ks and the eyelets started to fall out....

LS 2.1's are similar to the fusion in profile. Whilst they don't hold an edge as well as Step steel I think they are better than LS2 steel. Last year a pair of training boots I have had 2.1's and the blade cracked on me, I had some LS2 steel as spares, put them on and sharpened them and there was a noticeable difference in the time between sharpens for me.

I disagree. I have seen dozens of edge holders develop slop where the steel fits, it is the most obvious thing in the world when we put it in the jig to sharpen them and the boot flops. It may be a generation issue (around the MX3 release it is very common), a change in design / material / production plant or it could be that they just haven't had long enough yet but the problem does not seem so bad on the latest S / X / N Bauer skates (I have only seen 2 so far that went back for warranty repair). Now dozens of skates may seem insignificant until you consider we would be one of the smaller markets (around a 1k player base in the city) so the amount of failures is statistically significant and is backed up by employees in our LHS (we only have one). On the other side of the equation "one good experience <> everyone must have had a good experience". As to what causes the issue I have no idea, it seems to be a roll of the dice as I have also seen MX3's that are beaten to death and the steel still sits straight. But there is an issue there (I am not the only person who has sharpened skates who has made this observation on this forum) and you saying you haven't had one does not make it go away. Which leads to a side issue but one that players should be aware of. Sparx, Pro Sharp and other vertical sharpeners can make the problem worse. The issue isn't apparent when getting sharpened so it requires the player or sharpener to use other measures to check for the problem (and be extra vigilant with maintenance checks). Just trying to wiggle the blade in the holder is not enough.

If you want hassle free, low maintenance skating stick with ls2, you aren't playing nhl so you don't need the speed of change or the few extra mm of clearance. I've never had a ls2 holder flop on me when I put it in the jig to sharpen but I've seen plenty of edge holders do it and the only real fix is to replace them. For around $20 you can get a new holder (ebay, sideline etc) so get it changed if you think it is the problem.

Whilst that may apply to a heavy person, that isn't the main concern. Skates, unless they are modified customs, are designed for a neutrally aligned ankle. Put a new skater in them or someone who pronates (an estimated 70% of the population pronate and it is more prominent in 1st world countries) and when they stand in a soft boot the general result is a wobble inwards. Now the boot has additional pressure on primarily the inner ankle and in its soft state it bends and opens up and now you have a looser fit. Sitting puts the ankle into a neutrally aligned position and as manufacturers know that most LHS employees have very little knowledge in the foot alignment field, sitting is the simplest and safest option to improve the chances of a good fit. For a boot that goes really soft like mako or true, any off center pressure is bad news.

Thanks but I'll trust my experience from years of fitting skaters (hockey and figure, ice and inline) into skates. But to the thread subject, it's reasonably self explanatory why True want you in a lunge position for the scan. Ironically it's at odds to the baking process, at the point where you really need to be weight bearing in a skating position you can't be because of the risks of distorting the boot and even True haven't solved this one yet.

Really? I have yet to have ANYONE fail this test when fitting for length (laces out, foot forward till toes "feathering" the toe cap, bend forward and fit the pencil down the back of your heel). "Most people can't tell if their toes are curled in the toe box or not"??? wtf. "nor can they properly tell if their feet are flat and bearing weight" - about the only time this sentence makes any sense is if they are lying on their back and waving their feet in the air....

JR said it but I also think it is a mix of economics and reality. Those of us that sweat enough to destroy the eyelets are in the minority, goodness knows what the figure is but I'd have a guess that of their overall sales we are in the sub 1% range. So from their point of view, why change when it works for 99%+ of their player base? They take a bit of stick in forums and warranties from those of us that do have issues but they will just ride it out and pocket the difference in cost. If anyone here from a LHS wants to offer some percentage figures of sales to eyelet warranties I'd be very interested to know. Personally I don't mind it, I know what will happen if I ever lace a pair of CCM's or Rbk's up again and I know how to deal with it (skate lace free!). What I do wish is that they would offer something to fix it. they know it happens and they know why and I wish there was a customisation option where I could choose T316 stainless steel eyelets or similar, I would very happily pay a premium for this (and it would give me another reason to go custom CCM). and whilst they may have some smart people working on their skates they still make really really dumb decisions, screwing up the sizing and releasing a skate that turns the laces pink (you would not believe how much this drives people nuts...)

It's not that it doesn't happen, it's how fast. My Bauer eyelets on my one100's are slowly giving up, I've had 8 replaced so far. However on Reeboks and CCM's I have replaced eyelets within a year and had to do the whole boot. Like for the player above, I sweat a lot and this destroys shitty eyelets really fast and normal eyelets over time. If you have had your Bauers for years and had no issues you will most likely be ok with CCM or Reeboks for many years. There are eyelets out there that don't react to sweat, Alkali used them in their top of the line inline boots (CA9's) and these eyelets were bulletproof.