Vet88

Don't know if they will catch on but at the 2016 FIRS championship there were a number of guys wearing these. I wanted to try a pair on but they don't make them for my tiny feet (size 6) lol. The one thing I really liked about them was how the frame mounts to the boot, you can adjust it in all directions to suit your foot mechanics. This is something that speed skaters have done for years but no one in the inline hockey world has provided for until now.

That is right, a soft side with a frame around the ankle. I've found the K2 and Salomon boots to be good, do some research as there are a lot of cheap chinese plastic rubbish around that do not last long, a decent pair will set you back around the $60 - $90 mark. And don't think this is just for beginners, this is often used in off ice camps over summer.

Not in this thread but in others I have discussed how to get better quickly as a beginner. Ice time is generally limited and often on the ice trainings consist of skating drills and then waiting your turn for the next drill only to have someone screw it up. And then you have a scrimmage and how many times during that scrimmage did you actually get to touch the puck? Scary fact, during the average 90 minutes of group trainings you will get to touch the puck for no more than 2 - 3 minutes. How are you meant to get better at just 2 minutes a day / week??? You need to skate and puck handle and without your own rink or a job at one etc this can be hard. So here is how you can get better, fast. Buy yourself a pair of soft sided recreational inline skates (you can remove the brake), I suggest these because of the time you are going to spend in them and you want it to be comfortable from day one. You can use proper inline hockey skates if you want but often that comes with its own issues, fit, break in period, wear etc. Then buy the hardest outdoor wheels you can, you are looking for 82A or 84A hardness. Then purchase a green biscuit or 2 and a shaft (straight, not tapered) and an abs blade (inline warehouse, hockey monkey and others have green biscuits and abs blades). Get down to your local park, driveway, mall carpark wherever there is a flattish skateable surface and start skating and puck handling to your hearts content. This is the best way to improve, period. Nothing comes close other than your own ice time. And everything you do here will transfer across to ice. If you want to really replicate an ice skating style look at a marsblade chassis on an inline boot. Good luck and enjoy.

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......

Alan - previously we have spoken at length on this and discussed how graf was better suited for the movement of the holders. I had some success with this but it is not the panacea one expects it to be. I have done some ongoing work with a couple of students who are doing masters / doctorates in this field and have learnt that pronation has many causes and effects, resolving it in a ice skating boot requires a multi phased approach - orthotics, boot fit, blade alignment, body alignment, exercises, strengthening programs and stretching. For example: putting a wedge in to get cog may help you whilst you are standing upright in a neutral position on the blade but as soon as you go into a turn and if the boot fit is not right the foot can collapse and roll in the boot. This leads to a loss of power in the turn, loss of edge or the catching of an edge as you transition from one edge to another coming out of the turn because your foot has now moved in the boot. My suggestion would be to go see a sports podiatrist who has experience in working with ice skaters. NOTE - "experienced" is the key word here and you will need to ask some hard questions before you consider seeing someone and paying them for their time and expertise. The aapsm organisation would be a good start and their web site (www.aapsm.org) has a list of members located in Canada. You may know of other organisations who offer similar expertise. The downside is the cost, it is not cheap to see these people and get orthotics built and if you live remotely it is even harder. But I think that seeing someone skilled in sports podiatory, explaining to them the problems you are having, working with them on your current skates and a long term plan (or short term if your current skates are found to be a poor fit) to get into a pair of VH skates (for example have them build lasts for you that VH build the boot from) would be the best value money you can spend if you want to continue skating. This is a good article on pronation in skates and how some of the issues were addressed: http://www.aapsm.org/pdf/humble-skatinga.pdf

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.

A lot would depend on the fit of your helmet. I just put the head band on and pull the helmet over the top. I use these ones: NIKE Dri-Fit Home & Away Reversible Headband. Without the head band my helmet sits really loose on my head, I have it at its widest setting. I also use a skull cap (made from shammy material) to absord extra sweat. Without these 2 I'd run rivers of sweat down my face and after a game I can literally wring a cup of liquid from the 2 of them.

If you still want to wear glasses (I do) then this is how I manage: - start using tennis sweat bands, they do 2 things 1: hold your glasses in place on your head so they don't fall down / move during play OR fall off when you take your helmet off. They stop sweat running into your eyes, visor etc. An added bonus is they can help to get your helmet to sit firmly on your head. - use a defogging agent of some kind on your glasses. Demist that is used by divers is good but I go to the local supermarket and buy baby shampoo or baby oil. Put a drop on both sides of the glasses, spread it around with your finger and then buff it off lightly with a soft tissue. This guarantees no fogging for around 2 skates plus it keeps your glasses clean! And this tip came from an ophthalmologist who said it was safe for lenses and their coatings.

And I don't disagree with you, I think they have created a very good product that fills a niche at the bottom to good end of the sharpening spectrum and the "I just want to sharpen skates at home" market. IMHO there are a lot of rinks and shops out there that could benefit from having one of these, by removing the barely trained operator from the equation they could give consistent results. I've had these kinds of people sharpen and butcher my blades so I know exactly what you are talking about. However I was lucky enough to meet one the better sharpeners in the business and have spent the last few years learning from him, it is worth it when you find a good sharpener but that hunt can be a difficult and frustrating process.

Yep, there ain't no machine that will tell you the stone doesn't sound right as the blade runs over it or the pass just doesn't feel right. A machine solution will give you a sharpen but a good experienced operator will give you a great sharpen and there is night and day difference between the 2.

Really? And here you are squeezing the sides in to a visible dent to try and get a better fit? Your a consumer dealing with one or a couple of experiences with a graf skate, if it works for you then well done and of course you may have nothing negative to say about it. That is your experience. Yet there are a number of comments here from members that deal with skates at the coal face, ie those customers who come back with QC problems. And of those customers, my experience was that there were disproportionately more Graf customers than any other skate brand. Note that I'm still not saying the skate is rubbish, when the issues were put right customers loved the skate but dealing with these issues was a constant pita. If Graf ever want to get the support of retailers back again to sell their product then this is the kind of thing they need to overcome.

Even more true after watching the NA vs Finland game, NA playing with out and out pace with transitions happening immediately at flat out speed and a huge dollop of skill. Brings to mind a conversation I had with a pro inline player a few years ago when he told me he was retiring from the game at the age of 26, his comment as to why was because all these young bucks at the ages of 16 and younger were starting to skate rings around him. The game is a changing.

That doesn't say much for Sweden after Europe took them to the cleaners the other day, but I thought it was 2 potentially good teams playing a very average game. Agreed that NA is the dark horse and I hope they get out of group play, up front all the skill in the world but their defence is a worry.

Commenting on just the scanning, I've seen and worked on a number of applications that use this type of technology. If it's similar the scan is pretty good, it uses algorithms (not to far removed from facial and fingerprint scanning) to determine the image and placement and everything inside the image borders are rendered reasonably accurately. Whilst a dedicated, fixed work area using multiple lasers or cameras will give a highly accurate rendering, it's expensive and difficult to distribute and maintain in a retail sales environment. It can only get better if they continue to develop the software. An alternative process is to use a camera to take pictures of your foot then upload the pictures for them to be rendered into a 3d image, I've seen a company working on this (real estate company builds a 3d image of your home which you can use VR to walk through) and the results are damn good. I wish VH would follow this path, a near perfect last (use a 3D printer) to build a boot (eventually using a 3D printer for this) regardless of where you live in the world. Here is an example of using 123D catch (free software even) to build a last from photos: http://www.123dapp.com/123C-3D-Model/Foot/866435 I'd even pen this as an open letter to VH, if you could work with software like this to create lasts in your factory from photos taken locally, I could personally send around 150 skaters your way overnight..... And yes, this kind of technology turns the distribution market on its head but I suspect its only a matter of when before someone tools up for this.

Live stream or tv: DATE TEAMS TIME (ET) HOW TO WATCH Thu., Sept. 8 Sweden vs. Finland noon ESPN3 Czech Rep. vs. Russia 12:30 p.m. ESPN3 North America vs. Europe 8 p.m. ESPN2 Fri., Sept. 9 Canada vs. USA 7 p.m. ESPNU Sat., Sept. 10 Russia vs. Czech Rep. 10:30 a.m. ESPN3 Finland vs. Sweden noon ESPN3 USA vs. Canada 7 p.m. ESPN3 Sun., Sept. 11 Europe vs. North America 6 p.m. ESPN3 Tue., Sept. 13 Finland vs. USA 7 p.m. ESPN Wed., Sept. 14 Czech Rep. vs. North America 3:30 p.m. ESPN3 Sweden vs. Europe 7 p.m. ESPN3 Russia vs. Canada 7:30 p.m. ESPN2

I loved my graf skates for fit but only after: - I hammered down all of the staple ends in the footbed - added step steel to fix the stock steel that was bent and started to rust just at the thought of moisture - loctited the blade holder in place to stop the blade clicking and moving - added patches to the liner to stop early and rapid wear - then finally replaced the holders with tucks (because the blade would not sit straight in cobra 5000 holder because the holder is just poorly made) And then ended up doing similar work of varying degrees to just about every other graf skate in our local leagues (28 at last count). All had an issue of one kind or another, all fixable but just really poor QC. Fit and comfort is what Graf are really known for, if Vaughan can fix the rest at the right price point then they might be able to start a resurrection amongst retailers and players bit it's going to take a lot effort and they are going to have to front up with some really good customer service initiatives.

Personally I'd be disappointed with a length fit like this for custom skates unless you specified that length (I know players who do have their toes around 1cm off the toe cap to help prevent broken toes from pucks). Your toes look to sit around 1cm off the toe cap and that is one size too long. However length may not be as important with customs if the rest of the boot fits perfectly and your heel, ankle and rest of the foot are locked in securely.

and length comparison to 1x / apx2's?

Put some lipstick on your bone and then foot in the boot, the lipstick will transfer to the boot and give a mark as to where to punch. Then get the boot punched out and you will be fine. Or do it yourself, it's not hard with about $10 - $15 of parts. this is one of the easiest punches you can do. As you were in apx2's, how would you compare them in the heel area for width and overall length? Would you say they are narrower in the heel?