Vet88

You can't use silicon or rubber as it would give and still allow the blade to flex sideways. Teflon tape is good as it does not give under pressure. I end up press fitting the blade into the holder and then resharpening the blade. It's a last resort because if the blade breaks or when it wears out then getting it out is going to be really difficult and anything new going into the holder will flop about. At the end of the day a new edge holder is the only proper fix. We have timed skaters (from standing starts) with this issue and they were all faster once the blade was sitting firmly in the holder.

Every edge holder I have seen that was clicking, when I put it in the carriage to sharpen the boot flopped. Put 200lbs of force into the boot as you push half way thru your stride and that sideways flex is only going to get worse. Whilst you can skate like this, its the loss of speed and edge control that is the worry. Testing players from standing starts (using electronic timers) and then I repair the holder (using teflon tape and pressing the blade into the holder for a secure fit) and they are all quicker in the next set of tests. You raise an interesting point, how will Marsblade deal with this? It's one thing to have it feel good as you turn and glide but if you suffer any loss of speed during acceleration then it's not going to work.

Did you tell True you pronate significantly on the right foot? I have seen earlier in the thread they will make allowances for this by building up the arch a little more. However that may not be your only issue, if the holder isn't mounted at least dead center (and even 1mm off center to the outside makes a big difference here) then your foot collapse will be exaggerated. Ideally you would have asked them to move the holder inwards by 1mm off the center line, it makes such a difference to your pronation and how the skates feel on your feet. 1mm may not be the amount you need to achieve perfect balance but it is a good start and in my experience of fitting skates it addresses around 90% of people with pronation, or at least getting them to a place where they can skate comfortably.

You want to clamp in the area that is directly under the ankle bone, half way between the bottom of the ankle bone and the bottom of the foot.

Not necessarily so. Sparx has a different pricing model where the wheels, at this stage, are proprietary to them. Like printers and ink, sell the printer for as cheap as you can and make your money on the consumables.

According to recent posts the designer has made, they have been submitted and they expect an answer in the next 2 months.

Putting aside views on whether they work or not, the primary reason pros are not wearing them is because they are not yet approved by the NHL. There is no way you would wear these outside of games and then switch back to traditional holders for games, it would screw with your muscle memory to much. Once the NHL approve them (if they do) then it will be interesting to see what pros switch, especially as it will be mid season. I would expect most to hold off until the end of the season before switching over so they can test the hell out of them before trusting them to game time. As to the validity of the product, sign me up. This follows along my line of thinking of a natural balance point your body finds when the ankle can move and is not locked into a heel pocket. A floating blade will really help here. These with no laces, I can't wait to receive them. My only reservation is the steel, I hope they get Step or Tydan or other steel manufacturers on board asap.

https://www.true-hockey.com/find-a-retailer/?location=Australia&location_id=ChIJ38WHZwf9KysRUhNblaFnglM&skate=false

Things are really slow. Still swollen, still can't do a calf raise, backward skating is a stumbling joke. Surgeon said 4 - 6 months before the pain and swelling disappears (but he was ok with me skating). Physio doesn't want me to skate, we agreed to disagree but I did back off training this week, only skated 4 times instead of 7 lol.

Yes, you hit the nail on the head there. Most skaters have no clue the holder is opening up, it's not till we point it out that they realise something is wrong. If you drop your skates off to a shop and don't see them getting sharpened and the sharpener does not tell you then unless you know to look for this you would not have a clue (and I reckon that would be 99.9% of the skating population out there). And as an aside a Sparx would hide this issue, I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, just that if you used a Sparx you would have to check in other ways as opposed to a traditional sharpening method to highlight the problem.

I've sharpened a lot that are skates purchased from a LHS and have never had the steel changed in them. The Edge flop is the term we use when you put the boot into the clamp and it sinks down.....

5 eyelets down, yeehaa, nice to see.

I still have my moon boot which has a removable velco wrap soft inner liner. Will pull the liner out and I have thin, flexible ice packs that I can velcro to the inside. Hopefully will do the same job as no local shop in my country has the shockdoctor product. lol, walking once the 24/7 3 months cast / moon boot comes off is a weird experience. Just no strength in the foot, couldn't do a calf raise to save myself. Thanks for the replies.

My ankle isn't broken but I did have surgery on my heel that involved repair work on the achilles, 2 months after and the ankle is still swollen. Surgeon says this is really common with foot surgery, akin to broken ankles. So for those of you that did break your ankle and either did or didn't have surgery, how long till the swelling disappeared? Did you use ice and did it help and for long after the surgery did you use ice for? Or anything else for the swelling?

True is engineered by a speed skater (Scott), so with your Graf comments in mind do you expect True to go the same way because they don't know what "works in hockey"??? There is a countering and growing argument to the high cut, ultra stiff, limited forward flexion, rigid ankle lock design that some of todays manufacturers are pushing in the desperate search for more speed and this is what some suspect is leading to more injuries. Lets take a common training technique in Europe and that a lot of professional players still use today, skate and train with no laces. Regardless of what skate you are in, now everything you said about graf (and I won't dive into the murky world of corporate and player sponsorship here as a reason for them going out of business) comes into play (low cut, soft boot, balanced forward on the balls of your feet) yet players are not getting injured from this? ParkseY - your boot was built to your foot shape (if you used the 3D scan) so adding superfeet is going to change that. Zac covers this in earlier posts. I don't know if this will work for you but you may want to try a reprofile on your blade with a +2 pitch (get the center moved forward). This will put you more onto your heel. Changing boots is activating different muscles in your skating technique, if you want to simulate a True fit in your Bauer skates then try dropping an eyelet or 2 and skate this way in your Bauer skates for a couple of months. The increased forward flexion and ankle roll you will get will help activate those muscles you are struggling with when you skate in True skates. Then try your True skates again.

Don't keep your right hand up, get it level with the stick hand and let your arms move in motion with your body. If you keep your right hand up you are skating in a position that is totally different to when you want to hold the stick in 2 hands, this is why you skate with the hands relatively level to each other when you are skating with one hand on the stick. A transition to 2 hands on the stick means the top hand comes up a little and the bottom hand drops down a little but your shoulders, torso and balance are still consistent to your one hand on stick stance.

It's great seeing how much you have improved. My thought is that you are now beginning to repeat / reinforce bad skating technique. Looking at the way you are skating you are too much on your inside edge and are using the sides of the boot to accelerate with, turn etc. To correct it it doesn't matter how much I or anyone else talks to you about this, this can only be learned by muscle memory experience. The approach I use is to get players to start lacing 1 eyelet down, practice like this then just as you start to feel comfortable, drop another eyelet. Keep going until you get to 4 down (the top 4 eyelets not laced). At this stage your ankles have no support from the boot, they have to hold you upright and you have to be skating on top of the blade or your foot will collapse. Game time you lace back up to where you are comfortable with but every non game skate you drop eyelets. If you really want to see how much impact this has on your skating, next time you have access to a goal on the rink undo 2 or 3 eyelets and then try and push the goal across the rink. If you have good technique you will be fine, if you use the sides of your boot in any way at all as leverage during the push your foot will collapse inwards and you have no power in the push. ps - and on those turns really focus on getting the inside foot more forward. Try stepping into the turn / pushing forward with the inside foot, not just gliding into it.

Whereas I tried really hard to like these (and AX1's and QR1's and a bunch of other Warrior top end lines) my knee just would not feel right when sitting in the pocket. Nothing against the padding, just wouldn't work for me. Sold all of them to team mates though who are happy campers with them.

You get what you pay for, Any top of the line pad has great knee protection, it then comes down to fit. My personal preference is Rbk 10k, 11k or 20k as they are built like tanks, great knee protection and fit me really well and I don't need to tape them. apx2's are also ok. Tried everything else top of the line, protection is great but the fit is meh on me.

The sad part here is that you had someone at the LHS say it was fine......

You can use them but you need to cut the lugs off and epoxy them in place to stop them turning. I also ground a slot in the top of the nut so I could use a screwdriver to help with installation / removal.

"Because the base layer is protected the abrasive" - I'm kind of struggling to understand this sentence. Lets assume it was meant to be "Because the base layer is protected by the abrasive" then it isn't really talking about the abrasive at all. It's talking about the base layer. I'd expect the base layer to retain its shape, it's the profile of the abrasive after 200 passes that I would be interested in. But on the other hand lets assume somehow the sentence is about the abrasive and it's profile is always "PERFECT". As an engineer who has spent a lot of years working with abrasives I find this particularly hard to swallow. You have a product that by the very nature of its work wears away every time it is used. Let alone the fact that the entire surface of the profile of the grinding wheel is not in contact with the skate blade (the outer edges do not contact, do these just mysteriously evaporate away?) you have minute variations in the shape of the hollow of the blade that causes + / - grind resistance as the wheel does it work. And if you ever changed your hollow then this would only magnify the issue. Otherwise what they are saying is they have invented an abrasive that never changes shape during it's life span, its wear is even and consistent REGARDLESS of the shape of the surface it is in contact with. If this is the case then they are wasting their time making skate sharpeners, I can think of a dozen better applications they could put this technology to use with...

How do you check the grinding ring for accuracy of hollow after x sharpenings? Using other sharpening systems one would dress the wheel before sharpening the blades (either to change hollow or to ensure the wheel was still true at it's setting) so how does sparx retain the accuracy of the hollow on the grinding ring?

This might cause a volume issue but as a test it could help to prove your arch issue. If you have any old footbeds lying around, cut the arch out of them and slip them into your boot. this will give your foot a lift or around 1mm - 2mm (depending on the thickness of the footbed) and relieve any pressure on your arch due to the boot pushing up into it. If you can skate pain free in the arch this way then keep working away at getting that arch lower, if you still have pain then you may need to rethink what the cause is.

Some machines have a clamp that runs the length of the blade (eg Incredible Edger machine) and I haven't seen a blade yet that these can't straighten for the sharpen. When you take them out of the clamp then that's another matter, they are still bent and as hard as I have tried, I haven't found a way to reliably straighten them. I was told if you retemper them whilst clamped in a shaping jig then you can have some success but that seems a lot of work for a $50 blade. Better of spending your time and money on a quality blade like Step etc.