z1ggy

I believe it is, yes. Boy I am conflicted! So many good stories and anecdote here (as usual), I'm torn. I really wish I could "try one out" for a month or something like CCM lets you do with their 90 day guarantee. I have no idea how much my current bag cost all those years ago, so I have nothing to judge value on. All I know is that it's an 'iTech' brand bag and I'm pretty sure it's canvas, but the inside has this weird liner that's now totally coming apart. Zippers are also getting jacked but I really like how it opens on top. Here is the same bag as I have, just in red/blue

That looks ssssuuuuppperr nice. I am interested. Ha, looks like I already sub to Tron's email list. Probably all gets filtered into spam.

The mesh vents... yeah not the absolute end of the world. I only drive like 20 minutes home from the rink and I immediately take all my gear out and set it on a table in my garage to dry. For $25 it could be worth a try, but there's no other pics and no real descriptions. To me, it looks like it just zips across lengthwise, which like the Dolomite, is kind of a bummer. My current bag actually has two zippers that run length wise near the edges, so it basically opens up like a giant flap, total access and visibility to the inside. I get a lot of pro bags just have that one horizontal zipper, but I'm starting to think I want more of that U shape zipper like the Mac Daddy bag here.

The description on the Easton Pro says "internal pockets" but yeah likely not large skate pockets, which I agree are nice. Probably just small ones for tape, toiletry, etc.

Thanks very much for this find. Hoping maybe another retailer has black or blue... HM only has silver, not preferred...haha. Reminds me of aluminum foil or something.

Good point on the mat, I'm going to probably buy one ASAP for the mean time. So all in all, what is the difference from something like this Warrior Dolomite bag for $55 and a Warrior Pro Bag? The details for the specs seem identical, and other than obvious external differences, I can't really tell much else apart. The Pro bag is like 100'' more volume but why is the cost essentially double?

This is what I worry about with any mesh, in general. I get it breathes, but it's just so easy to cut. Skate blades, scissors... really anything will cut it up eventually. And yeah the C&B for $150 was looking pretty crazy but $200+ for PR or Mammoth seems outright madness, unless the thing will last me the rest of my hockey career and then also my kid's (until high school gives them a bag or something). Personally I don't care about compartments for gear like shins/gloves and so on, although the foot rest on the C&B bag is a good idea. How many times I've taken my shoes off after the last group left and instantly dunked my feet onto left over snow or wetness from the last guy's skates is too many to count. I also don't like the idea of just a giant one hole. I want at least a side spot for skates, and 1 other zipped area for tape, wax, laces, etc.

Do you find the more pricey bags such as Conway and Banks which provide a lot of features such as a foot mat, mesh ports for air flow, dividers in the bag for partitioning gear, etc to be worth it? My current bag is pretty much falling apart now after 15 years of use and I'm looking to upgrade. I see a lot of decent looking bags out there for $50-$60 and wonder if the expensive bags are worth it. Other than skates & gloves, I tend to keep anything until it literally falls apart, so I'm much more concerned about durability, practicality and features such as small pockets to put tape in and so on, rather than price. I'm 100% willing to pay double or triple the price for something that lasts me many years and is quality, as opposed to cheaply made garbage I'll be replacing in 3-4 years. Let's hear your experiences below.

Gosh 1 foot backwards laced down sounds brutal, but I'll work on it. Watched a few videos on youtube of guys going basically laceless and they were extremely good skaters and they even looked pretty challenged. Hopefully this is what really propels me forward in advancing my skills, thanks.

I'm not sure how bad it is in terms of degrees or whatever but the left is definitely worse than the right. Could be ankle, could be knee.. could be hip. I'm working on a glute and hip strengthening program too to help at least try to also correct any issues that way. As far as me...Been skating for like 15 years now so I'm not really a beginner but obviously going just 2 eyelets down made me feel like I was in learn-to-skate, so I have a lot of progress to make. Schedule right now is 2 skates per week, 1 game and 1 practice. Game time I can probably lace down for 5 minutes during warm up, then during my practice I could go as long as 2 hours, just depends on the day.

Yeah I could not believe how hard going 2 down was! Felt like a little baby fawn, couldn't imagine trying to do hockey stops or going backwards... just skating forward was an interesting adventure. I think this will really help not only improve balance but strengthen my ankles and feet quite a bit, hopefully correcting a bit of this pronation. Typically, how fast did you see improvement from your students?

Thanks so much for the help and insight. When dropping eyelets gradually, do you actually remove the lace out of the eyelet or just leave it extremely loose. I can drop 2 eyelets no issues by pulling the lace out and just tying up as normal, but I think once I hit 3 or 4 undone, the left over lace will get pretty annoying. I actually did do 2 not tied/extremely loose prior to my game on Sunday and wowww like you said, it pointed out so many flaws right away. It was so tough and so weird feeling, I could only last about 1 minute before I went and laced up as normal on the bench.

Oh gosh, pistol squats... my bane. I think that's probably the end goal, is doing them totally unassisted, but right now I can't. Mainly a weakness issue but probably balance, too. I have to hold on to something to help and I also can't go to the femur parallel point yet. When you did these to just start with... did you just do a simple loosening of the laces or did you go full out totally unlaced? This is probably something I can do during the first few minutes of stick time on the weekends before we randomly end up breaking out into a game. Right now it's only my left foot that pronates too much, I suspect there's just a lot of weakness in that anatomy from old injury and somewhat relatively flat feet.

Do you remember what the exercises were? As far as the no/loose lacing, how many minutes per session and what kind of skating did you do?

That in just in general Vapors have a weird fit now. D is extremely narrow and murders my forefoot and EE makes the heel sloppy. I've tried the past 4 gens of Vapor on and I haven't kept any on my foot for longer than 15 seconds. The Mako toe box is a thing of beauty and I'm honestly not sure why CCM wouldn't try to copy it as much as possible. Nobody's damn foot is shaped like a upside down "U". I'm going to have to try and see if I can punch out the spot right where cap meets the boot otherwise I don't know if my pinky toe will be able to last very long.

Can confirm after coming from Mako II's... Nothing else out there fits like it. I have no experience with True but from what I hear it's got that same anatomical fit as the Mako. Biggest difference from Bauer, CCM etc will be toe box. Now that I'm in FT1 I really miss that Mako toe box. If you slapped that on my FT1's I would be thrilled.

That's my issue... my Mako's really starting to break down on me. I have a few weird boney protrusions on my foot so I do probably want to use the 3D scan fit tool. Have a little wider forefoot myself but my heel is so narrow and my foot volume so low that Supreme's or AS1 is just too big. 1X too narrow in the forefoot... but then DD too big, so on and so on. Glad to hear the Jetspeed is working out for another Mako user. How'd you feel about the overall pitch of the FT1 boot & holder? I had my Mako's fitted with neutral step steel and small shims under my front tower because I felt the pitch was really aggressive. Much happier with this pitch now.

Anybody coming from Mako I/II go into FT1 or plan to go into FT2? Any thoughts/feed back on fit etc would be helpful. Thx.

Those look like Mako's had a love child with some Jetspeeds or something.... haha. Very interesting...Could it possibly some kind of prototype? Toe caps look just like my Mako's but obviously the "outsole" and QP is very different, along with eyelets.

Funny coincidence, I'm going to rebake mine tonight at the recommended spec above. I bought some clamps from hardware store to try and really dial in my ankle/heel fitment... Can you squeeze on that hard carbon fiber heel area with clamps right after the bake? I've used a heat gun on the boot before to press and punch in little areas on the sides, but I'm trying to use these clamps to press in as much of the heel/ankle area as possible. Don't want to crack or break these in the process.

Paging Dr Boucicaut - Please tell me what you'd need from me in order to make this happen. I've got pics of said issues, etc. Looking to try to fix this soon if possible.

After talking with somebody, I've been advised to NOT let hockey monkey touch my Mako's as far as fixing the holder issue. Since this means shipping my skates somewhere... can somebody suggest a shop in the US that would be the best place to send these? If somebody will know who does quality skate repair its gotta be here on MSH.

Not to be rude, trying to help - Step 1) Take out cell phone, and take photos Step 2) Go on the internet, go to Imgur.com and make an account Step 3) Download the imgur app for your phone Step 4) Use app to upload photos to your imgur account Step 5) Use the links provided in Imgur to post embedded photos here This should take you all of 10 minutes.

It's certainly not mental as I measured the offset with my tape measure. The left skate is installed about 1/8'' closer to the toe than the right one (not sure which is actually correct) and the rear tower is about 1/16 to 3/16 closer to the outside of the boot than the right holder's set up. Since the left skate doesn't feel balanced like the right one, I assume the entire holder is done improperly. For the past 4 years, I thought it was all in my head like you said ... but then I had to measure and find out it was real. I'll have to see what Hockey Monkey says with regards to filling the holes and redrilling. Now that I've confirmed my suspicion I feel the imbalance even more so when I am out there.

Anyone else experience their holders being installed slightly crooked? I've got pics I can post if need be, but I measured both my holder placement and they are different. The left skate holder is closer to the toe of the boot than the right, and also it's slightly skewed in the back toward the outside of the heel. This makes it tough to get my skate blade flat on the ice and also I've got to work just a hair harder to get on the outside edge. Called hockey monkey to see if they can fix but I'm not hopeful. They need to be moved less than the width of a rivet, so I'm not quite sure how that would work. It's a shame too because they are pretty much a perfect form fit for my foot. So much better than my old Vapors from 2008. I'm considering maybe FT1's but it's extremely unlikely they'll fit as good. Also considering VH/True but I'm reading some horror stories over on that thread... For all the money they are worth people seem to be having some issues.