smcgreg
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Posts posted by smcgreg
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20 minutes ago, VegasHockey said:That is going to be tough. Not sure if I would suggest a 254.
Yeah, like I said, didn't realize they were that small. Thought they were 4.5s shoot.
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20 hours ago, VegasHockey said:On what size and model of skate? Anything is possible, the holder might just hang off a little on the toe and heel.
Bauer Vapor 3x Pro - 3.5
I didn't realize they were that small. sheesh.
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On 1/16/2023 at 9:39 PM, VegasHockey said:Custom or Pro Stock. Going from a 254 to 263 isn't that difficult and most shops can do it. Keep in mind the cost for holders, labor, and steel would be about $250
Curious. Do you think it would be doable going from 239 to 254?
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Two things, then I will be done. 1) I was actually going to acknowledge that with the relatively recent marketing and proliferation of profiling systems the "knowledge" of the existence of profiling is increasing. 2) Again though, if you do the math, a good chunk of players are older, casual players who don't pay attention to that or would not be aware. For those that aren't older, again, still casual and not paying attention to those types of things. The marketing is being done to the small chunk of players who have gobs of disposable income and spend $1k on skates alone. That is not the majority of players. Without the actual market research, this is all speculation, but until very recently (last two years), I still stand by my assertions. I'm done arguing speculation based on experience though. thanks.
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5 minutes ago, pgeorgan said:They might not know the intricacies or be able to explain in depth, but I think they know there is thing thing called a profile and it shapes your skates.
Especially after Bauer plastered it all over the inside of their skate boxes.
The majority of players haven't bought new skates in the last 2 years.
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16 hours ago, pgeorgan said:I'm not sure about that...
I think most know what it is, they just don't care, or they refer to it by some other name.
If you get new skates, step on the ice and something feels off, the smart player would take it to a proshop and ask what's going on. Hopefully the proshop would then explain what a profile is.
The more likely scenario is they have no idea how easily their profile can be ruined.
I am pretty confident in my assessment that most don't know. Heck 50% rec players don't even know what ROH they skate on. They take them to a shop who sharpens them and that's the extent of their knowledge. Then 25% know what ROH they get, but don't know what it is, then there is another 25% that actually know what it is. That last 25% may be an overestimation though. I have sooo many humorous anecdotes about the extent of this lack of knowledge that it is sometimes sad.
In the case of profiling though, I am quite confident that for the vast majority, "profiling" is this mythical thing that some people get if they are really concerned about their skates. Within that minority, for those who have taken the time and effort to figure out what profiling is and what different profiles are, they know. I am quite confident that the majority of the hockey populace have no clue what a profile actually is, let alone the details. People corresponding on this forum are in the tiny sliver of a minority that know what the heck things are. I don't have quantitative data to back it up, but quite a bit of empirical experience. I am willing to have somebody with actual market research to show me I am wrong though.
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19 hours ago, start_today said:At this point, it feels like companies are just rolling some various number of dice, then whatever numbers come up, making it a profile and marketing it as some mix of speed and agility.
It’s like making a D&D character, but for skate blades. I’m getting elf/mage/warrior/thief for my next quad profile.
Yep, and the funny thing is, the vast majority of players don't even know what a profile is. They may have a concept of a profile, but just say, "I'm gonna get my skates profiled" and have no clue that is actually happening. Seems like all of these variations are just trying to slice one of the smallest pieces of the hockey pie into even smaller pieces.
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23 minutes ago, Wrxnch- said:Which website ? Can’t seem to find it on XC blade website if that’s what you meant.
Yeah, not sure where, but I remember seeing it, since Conor Bedard is on Flare and Fantilli is on xCBlades.... But also, the owners showed me his custom UM blades too. Actually pretty cool if you can skate on them.
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3 minutes ago, Wrxnch- said:Oh nice how do you know he uses them ?
Listed on website.
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6 hours ago, Wrxnch- said:Yes there is use within professional hockey in the video here.XC blade Channel a player using XC blades was selected as 32nd for Edmonton oilers in the NHL draft. So we may see them in NHL fairly soon with Reid Schaefer.
you can see multiple players in different leagues around the world using the XC blades. These are still very new and therefore not known by that many people. Like with Reid Schaefer, they may slowly come into the NHL
And that “Fancy” skating certainly tests the blades and prove their capability. If you try some of those moves you will realise the difficulty and appreciate the stability and edge control needed. The original video was posted to show his review of the blades seen as we can not see many reviews of the blades. The 2nd video was to share the promo code for anyone looking to try them. It’s not about focusing on the “dancing” but focusing on his explanation of what he found from using the blades. And the 2nd video you can use the promo code to try them for yourself. The “ice dancing” you may as well watch for entertainment rather than complain about it.
Adam Fantili is on them as well. He will be a top 3 draft pick this year and likely in the NHL next season.
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It seems like one difference is that the flare doesn't have width options. As you point out, they get to their effect differentlly. I like the XCblade approach, because it's been well proven in downhill and XC skiing for over a decade, if not longer. The principle is valid.
Haha.... my son's a hockey player.... cost really doesn't factor. You choose which kid's education will get sacrificed down the road 😉 That being said, it appears as though the XCblades are cheaper than the Flares. So, another advantage.
We talked about it and he has an old pair of Trues that are the same size that we will likely throw some TUUK holders on for testing purposes. If testing goes well, then we'll switch his main skates over. The cost isn't the issue, it's the fact that the rivets start failing much sooner when you switch holders and it becomes a pain more than anything else.
Thanks for the responses.
Steve
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38 minutes ago, Wrxnch- said:There are no options for True. I am unsure if XC blade intend to make any blades for True. It is unlikely without much high demand. If flare has none on their website then they don’t make any for True either.
That's what I figured. Thanks for the response.
Have you tried Flare as well? From the comments I've seen, they seem similar. I'm thinking about these for my son who already skates on 7/8 ROH. If you went from a 1/2 to 1 in ROH and felt good, he's probably have to go greater than 1". Which should be fantastic for top end speed. So, really thinking about trying to give them a try somehow. Without a true option though, will need to change to a TUUK holder, which I don't really want to do.
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I've checked both Flare and XCblade websites and don't see options for True. Does anybody know if there options from either one for True skates?
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On 1/6/2021 at 9:52 AM, smcgreg said:As others have noted below, it's not just international. I had a package shipped from Seattle for my business the week before Thanksgiving (US) and they shipped USPS against my wishes. It has been "in transit" since Nov 28. It was an urgent shipment, which compounded my anger. My wife sent out 40 Christmas cards on Dec 15th, most domestic, and only a fraction of them have been received.
It's a combination of Covid affecting the workforce (less labor available) and the budget cuts enacted over the past year to cripple the USPS They were pretty effective in their objective.
As an update, the package I ordered from Seattle on Nov 18, which was shipped Nov 23 (USA Flat rate (3 days))...... just arrived at my door. Only 2+ months for 3 day... nice. I had written it off though, so, I guess I should be happy it showed up at all.
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1 hour ago, althoma1 said:Was he in the original Mako or the Mako II? Both are softer than the Trues I have felt, but having owned the original Mako, Mako II and the M7, I'd say the originals are definitely the softest and break down the fastest. I definitely noticed an increase in energy transfer when I switched from the original Makos to the Mako II's for ice and converted original Makos to M7's in roller (even the $400 M7s were stiffer than the original Makos and have held up better).
OGs? Heck, haven't seen those for years. I think his last pair were Mako IIs. He's had M7 and M8s as has my daughter. His last pair was actually a pair I had in reserve for myself, which he got, because TFs were not available yet and he needed new skates pronto. I believe they are MIIs.
The current ones I'm using are on their last leg, so, given the path we've gone down with him, I'm thinking I might give the TF7s a try for myself. My modifications are much more substantial than his though, so, I'm not enthused about starting from scratch. It's the journey that makes it interesting though, right? ... 😉
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4 hours ago, flip12 said:I came across this just now while I was browsing Scott Van Horne's patents, and it articulates my thoughts better than I would have:
"The sport of in-line and ice speed skating, hockey, figure skating, cross-country skiing, and the like are all very competitive sports, at the elite level. For optimal performance these sports demand comfort and stability. A lack of comfort can result in decreased training time. A lack of stability can result in: a loss of power through excessive joint bending and increased fatigue through excessive lower leg muscle stimulation, these factors will cause a decrease in performance."
From: High performance custom moldable footwear
I like the idea of laces free skating for training but I am skeptical about its broad applicability for competition.
This is actually relevant to the points I made with the TF9 comparison I made earlier. One of the most striking comments/observations my son made was, the second time he wore them (1st profile after the initial skate) was in an evaluation camp where he wore the TF9s for two back to back games. This was a risk, but his Makos were hurting his feet so bad we didn't think he could make it through two full games, so, wanted one game to adapt before leaving the final impression in the second game. He had played a game the day before and could barely skate at the end his feet were hurting so bad. As I noted in my comments up the thread, he looked observably faster to me. I could tell he was unsure in them and playing conservative so as not to trip over himself, but still, by the second game was rushing full ice and jumping in the O zone.
Anyway, when he came out to the car, aside from the speed comment, he said he felt less tired after two games in the TF9s than one game in the Makos.
Again, not sure where the energy losses were coming from, but there certainly were energy losses. The Mako is a pretty darn soft boot.
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13 hours ago, Vet88 said:Whilst I would love to try sandals with a holder on them (and I have been seriously considering trying this), I will readily admit the support the boot provides around the bottom of the foot is critical to good skating. IMHO it is the advances in boot technology that makes untied skating so different to anything that has come before.
We could debate for ever the cons and pros of untied skating and the rabbit hole of bio mechanics and force loadings. Until a skilled untied / tied skater can get a skate on a fancy force-measuring treadmill (which cost a few 100k $'s and then you have to convert it for ice skating) and then model the data along the lines of the work done by people like Daniel Lieberman, we will never know the answer. Putting aside my unqualified comments and everything that I have seen working with skaters, I still go back to Darryl Evans, there is just no way he would have kept his place with the Flyers if his power, acceleration and explosiveness was compromised as he got to 5 eyelets only lacing.
I'll leave the Lieberman reference alone.... 😉 That's a huge can of worms. Regardless, I really don't think instrumented treadmills are necessary to get to the answer and in fact, would be more challenging to get a satisfactory answer than some simpler alternatives. As I say, I know quite a lot of elite players and can deduct broad principles from that data I have. Alternatively, some simple, well conducted on-ice testing could get to the answer as well. As I alluded to earlier in the thread, we were going to do some of it with my son after making the changes, but he's absolutely convinced in the set up he wants now and any amount of testing I do won't make a bit of difference. That's another thing about hockey, the mental piece is huge and if you make a change that the athlete perceives reduces performance, it will affect confidence to the point that it will likely reduce performance regardless. A self-fulfilling prophecy or a negative placebo effect if you will.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. We've gotten far enough off of the topic, we probably should leave it at this point.
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29 minutes ago, BenBreeg said:I think of it this way, if you are driving straight down through the footbed, transferring force directly through the blade with no torque, stiffness of the sidewalls does’t come into play.
Of course, but there are many instances where that is not going to be the case or even possible.
Look at it this way, there are some very explosive fast skaters that have absolutely atrocious skating mechanics. Why? because 1) they simply produce a lot of power and 2) they have a "tight" system that allows that power to be transferred. On the other hand, you can have players with very good mechanics who are simply not explosive, why? because 1) they simply don't produce a lot of power.... well, that's it. Can, the latter case overcome the former, sometimes, there are a lot of variables at play in the game of hockey. Ideally, you want to produce lots of power AND have good mechanics.
Anyway, I get both of your points now and agree for the most part, but also will point out, it's simply not possible to have a perfect angle of attack and therefore zero power loss under all circumstances no matter how good your mechanics are and how much you practice. Again, not arguing ankle flexibilty isn't important or that lacing low is good if you can do it,... but.... you will compromise power transfer in some contexts, you just will.
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11 hours ago, Vet88 said:This is true if you have any technical issues with the way you skate, the boot hides the flaws in the foot and ankle movements. If your technique is good enough and you have learnt to skate laces untied then the stiffness of the boot does not matter.
Let me put it this way, accelerating / exploding when skating unlaced is like learning to balance on your forefoot whilst standing on top of a nail whilst you attempt to drive full power downwards and transfer your body weight over the top of the nail. Your forefoot has to learn how to balance on the point of the blade AND control the deflection of the blade as you drive power downwards and forwards whilst remaining stable in the boot. This is why it takes so long to learn this, it's something the body has never done before, the closest I can think off is someone who is learning classical ballet and can do a full pointe. You come up on the forefoot, lose your balance and ergo can't apply any power. Your son struggles with this simply because he hasn't trained enough and learnt to do it. And I understand why skaters choose not to do this, it can be a huge hit on development time and performance and its just easier to lace up and not focus on this final piece of the puzzle.
OK, I see where you're coming from, but in contrast to the ballerina, there are several inches of holder and steel beneath the foot and knife edge interaction with the surface. There is just no way that under many circumstances, the ankle joint is not going to be a "weak link" in that power transfer system. To your point, there will be some situations where that "weak link" can be mitigated to some extent, but in the end, there will be many angles of attack between the blade and the ice where power transfer will be somewhat compromised. That's just physics/biomechanics.
Don't get me wrong, again, I think agility and maneuverability trump raw speed or explosiveness in terms of being a better hockey player, but power transfer is going to be compromised under some circumstances, there's no way around it.
That being said, I agree that way too many skaters just go with the stiffest boot and lace up tight to cover up skating deficiencies. I think we agree for the most part, we're just splitting some hairs on details.
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32 minutes ago, Vet88 said:Yes, you do as you are learning to skate this way. But the loss is caused by your foot mechanics, you are trying to skate as you walk (laced up locks the heel and even though the foot tries to lift thru the heel it can't). Untied, your heel lifts as it naturally wants to do but as you keep practising your stride mechanics optimise to a flat push with no heel lift and your speed and explosiveness returns. This is the hardest and last element to learn because of how BIG a change it is, it doesn't matter how long you have been skating you have to go thru this change because of how intrinsic it is to how you walk. In his later years, Darryl Evans played his NHL games with just the bottom 5 eyelets laced up. I only lace the bottom 4 and my lap, sprint and beep test times now are better than when I laced up, which is saying something as I'm now at the age where every year I just get slower....
Hmm... I'll be honest, I don't know exactly what you're saying. That being said, I'm not sure how you can dispute that a foot that is elevated several inches off the ground, balanced on a knife edge is not going to generate more power with a "tighter", stiffer system. I suppose top end speed and even beep test times (a test of cardio vascular fitness) could be better, but raw acceleration/power, it's hard for me to envision.
I think I've read your assertions about the importance of ankle strength and exercises to develop such, which would likely help, but in the end, stiffer boots and tighter connections should result in greater power transfer and everything else is an exercise to mitigate the compromise. In my son's case, he's a better, more agile player who is practically faster (I assume) in most facets with a lower lacing pattern, but has higher top end and raw acceleration laced higher. In the end, the agility and greater control with lower lacing makes him a better overall hockey player even given a bit of a compromise on speed.
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18 minutes ago, Vet88 said:YES!!!! and people wonder why I preach about laces untied / lace free skating.
Watching him today at practice was awesome. Finally agile on his skates again and able to do what he used to do. On top of it, good speed that carries over with the new boots... for whatever reason.
Of course, I agree with you, as I use 55Flex, or actually a leather knock off since they're out of business. From a performance standpoint, there is a tradeoff though. Too much flexibility and you lose power and explosiveness. Too little and it compromises control and agility,...at least for him and me. Finding that "sweet spot" is the trick. He certainly can take advantage of the flexibility though, as he has TF9s down two eyelets. That's crazy low lacing.
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8 minutes ago, flip12 said:How much higher are the TF9s compared to his Makos?
Well, that's a really good question. Based on this, I measured and..... they appear to be the same. I took his word for it about the height, but it looks like the height of the cuff from the base of the outsole is the same on both skates. Then, I measured the eyelets and with it down to the second hole on the TF9s, it appears to be lower by about a half an inch.
*caveat: This is measuring with a tape measure assuming the bottom of the outsole on both skates represents where the bottom of his foot is. Still, it doesn't look like there can be much difference in height of the cuff and he probably is lacing them lower than he was on the Makos.
He commented on how much stiffer the boot is on the TF than the Makos, so, maybe it's not the height of the cuff, but just the sfiffness of the cuff?
So, now the question is,.... would the additional (-2) profile have fixed the issue and the new lacing pattern is just allowing him to adapt to the aggressive pitch?
One more relevant point here is, last year he laced the Makos an eyelet lower. He was a freshman on the varsity team the coach told him to lace them one eyelet higher because it would make him faster to keep up with the older kids. So, with the new lacing on the TFs, he's back to where he was on the Makos one year ago, which is really friggin low.. if you've ever worn Makos, but faster in the TFs for whatever reason.
Anyway, ..... I guess there is no difference in cuff height between the skates, just stiffness, but lower lacing helps, for whatever reason.
Friggin skating........
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1 hour ago, SkateWorksPNW said:May want to have him try skipping the 3rd from the top eyelet and lace the 2nd from the top eyelet. It will give him more lateral stability without hindering his forward flexion.
Unless he is confident everything is 100% ideal and he doesn't want any more changes. Then leave it as it is.
So, would that be trying to mimic a "55 flex" thing? I loved those and still use them myself.
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On 1/10/2021 at 1:35 PM, smcgreg said:Following up to this reply to help maintain some continuity.
Today, my son skated on his TF9s in two back to back games for the first time since profiling to 10 ft and -1 pitch. As a reminder, he hated the stock profile out of the box and was miserable after one stick adn pucks. As reference, he skated on his Makos in a game yesterday and decided to dive in head first for two games today for a number of reasons. This was a fairly high level skate (college recruitment), but not at the AAA 15U level. Since he skated one game yesterday, the Makos were fresh in his mind and TF9s were brand new and effectively novel to him since the profile was different. I'll break it down by things I think made a difference.
1. 10 ft radius - Much better than stock. He was visibly "teetering" back and forth on the stock profile at sticks and pucks. It was probably a combination of things, but he commented he felt like there wasn't enough steel under his toes and heels. No such comment today and no "teetering".
2. minus 1 pitch - Again, much better than stock. He commented that he still felt like he was being pushed forward a bit, but could probably get used to it. Will give it a couple more skates.
Other harder to attribute observations:
3. Power transfer - He commented that he felt more powerful on them. As support, after playing two back to back games, he felt less tired than the day before playing only one game on his Makos yesterday. As corroboration, watching him, I thought he was going further on each stride. I commented on this to a friend before his comments. So, not that this would be a specific True property, I just think the Mako footbed is breaking down and he's just getting better power transfer, resulting in greater stride efficiency and less fatigue.
4. He said they feel like "tanks". Heavier, beffier, less agile. They are heavier than Makos, but as I've stated before he needs more protection, so, any more protective skate will likely be heavier. at this point, this is his only complaint and he accepts that nothing will feel like the Makos from here on out. So, need to adjust and see if he can get the agility from these on top of the other benefits.
Finally, the fact that he skated two back to back games without any comfort issues in brand new skates is almost unheard of in any other brand, than Makos, I expect. The only comfort complaint was a bit of rubbing at the cuff because they come up higher than Makos. He's going to try higher socks next time to see if that fixes it, but if not, I'll heat and roll out the cuff. Still, pretty impressive to get that knid of comfort/fit for $600.
Probably the last follow up on this for a while. The details that got us to this point are in previous posts above. In general though, decent 15 yr old moving from Makos to TF9s. The last post was referencing fixes we made to the stock profile to address his complaints after the first couple skates. After that last post we made another change to the profile and points are listed below.
1. Additional (-1) pitch. After the 2nd profile above, he still felt the pitch was too aggressive, so, we took it back another notch. This made it 10ft (- 2) pitch. After measuring it compared to his makos, it still appeared to be effectively 1/4" higher back to front compared to Makos that were -2 from stock.
After this, he felt it was better, but still felt like it was "pushing him forward too much". We gave it a week to see how he adapted (skating everyday) and if no improvement would profile and take it back another (-2) to a (-4) total. This seemed very extreme to me, but given the previous changes and the existing difference between the old makos, I thought this is how we would get to where we needed to be.
After 7 skates on the second profile, comments continued to be... 1) much faster in straight line open ice skating than the Makos 2) he uses a lot less energy to go faster. Consistently less tired than norma. 3) tight turns better than the Makos but.... 4) agility and footwork bad. Skates felt "heavy", "like tanks", "clumsy". So, 1)-3) are big positives, but 4) is a killer.
One observation that he was getting a bit of a hot spot where the top of the cuff was rubbing above his ankle made me think of something else. He commented that the TF9s were higher than the Makos. He laced his Makos one eyelet from top, and had the TF9s one eyelet from the top. So, the last skate before we got them profiled, I asked him to drop the lacing to the 2nd eyelet down. That would make it closer to the actual Mako lacing pattern since the TF9s came up higher. My thought was, it was more the lack of fore-aft flexibility was the issue. He came off the ice and we were going to take them to my skate guy to get the profiled, he said, "don't bother, they're perfect"...... LOL..... So, one day away from going to a (-4) profile and how knows where that would have sent us.
Interestingly, as I say, the (-2) is still more aggressive than the Makos we had at (-2). This is a bit surprising, since I assumed they would have a similar ptich. This is a demonstration of a couple of things 1) how important ankle flexibility and range of motion is in the anterior/posterior plane for all aspects of skating, including footwork and agility and 2) how such a minor thing like 1 eyelet lacing pattern can make an enormous difference. Not that this would be the case with everybody, but there are so many friggin variables when dialing in skates .... its' crazy.
I'm still a bit surprised about the speed difference between the Makos and TF9s. I'm going to attribute it to the Makos being on their last leg. He always has rivet issues with them and I think the bottom outsole is just "worn out". There' s a lot of give around the holder and outsole and that creates loss of power transfer. Free speed though.... we'll take it!
We're going to do some testing fo the lacing patterns now to quantify the differences as far as top end speed and agility since it will be a very easy change to make and he "perceives" a huge difference. I'm curious to how much of a difference it makes quantitatively.
That's it for now. Hope this helps others trying to nail these skates down. No doubt they are comfy. But that stock pitch is pretty aggressive for somebody who's got an ingrained skating pattern .
Boot punch/stretch for modern tech
in Ice Hockey Equipment
Posted · Edited by smcgreg · Report reply
A point I got tired of making years ago. I wonder how many people have been made worse by inserts or orthotics and haven't realized it?
In most cases, moving the blade is the only good fix. (which presents a major problem in most modern skates)