YesLanges

Unfortunately, it's not atypical at all, because a perfect match between left and right on retail skates is probably more the exception than the rule. At least when they're both straight relative to the longitudinal axis of each boot, your body usually adapts to a slight mismatch in the distance to the boot edges the same way it does when you make other slight changes that don't necessarily affect one foot or the other individually. When they're not even even straight relative to the longitudinal axis of the boot they're on, I think that's much more of a problem that requires a fix, especially if you notice that it makes a difference and causes you issues on one skate that you don't have on the other. In that case, you might be lucky that they're also mismatched relative to the edges of the boot because that leaves the shop a little more room to work with if you have one holder moved to match the other. If they're already perfectly matched in the distances to the edges of the boot except for one being crooked, it's a lot harder to shift it over because there isn't enough room for brand new holes in the bottom of the boot that aren't so close to the original holes that they create larger misshaped holes when they drill new ones. There probably is a way to fix it that one of the skate-repair experts will explain, but it's probably a lot of work.

Hopefully, they're just wrong about that. Any chance he'd redo the test after letting you do his normal profile on them?

That doesn't sound too good, but thanks for the update. Maybe I'm lucky they don't seem to have a record of the 2nd set I ordered. Any idea when they're going to be shipping these? The latest update over the summer said end of October. Did you profile his steels to match his regular profile before he tested them? Only asking because his comments would probably be similar if he switched from his custom profile to a stock profile. Nothing you don't know better than I do...just asking.

Ditto. It helps tremendously by protecting the toe when you dig pucks off the boards and it extends the life of the tape job with that layer running under the bottom edge of the whole blade. Obviously, it's not going to add any protection from snapping, but it will definitely keep the blade from chipping and wearing down at the toe's front edge. I started doing that after destroying the edge of the toe on a brand new stick in 1 game and after I saw how some of the used pro-stock sticks I bought had apparently been taped by professional trainers.

That definitely makes him someone whose intuitive thoughts about it are valuable; but he'll also know that it's very tough to draw any conclusions derived from females to males on this particular topic because of the known greater vulnerability to ACL injuries in females relating to what I believe they refer to as the "Q angle" associated with wider hips. That's something that's been well-established in the literature. My guess is that the amount of blade on the ice (or wheel surfaces on the floor), knee bend, and the amount of time that a stride leaves the blade or wheels in contact with the skating surface will be the most important variables, with pitch only contributing indirectly as a function of one or more of those variables.

Your buddy probably meant that there's no right or wrong answer only as a general principle, where pitch is an isolated variable (i.e. without knowing or considering anything else about the skater in question). I'd expect that he'd agree that, in terms of pitch, the safest angle for ACL and other knee issues would probably be whatever angle represents the most natural preference of an experienced skater and that changing that angle now would be less safe for that skater. A skater whose natural pitch is forward and who's been skating that way for years would probably be more likely to injure his ACL by changing that angle, especially during the time that he's first adapting to it. If anything, I'd imagine he'd say that it might be the flat-footed, stand-up skater who'd want to consider pitching more forward to protect his knees rather than the other way around.

I don't skate on wheels, but I have an ACL repair and I think anything that increases knee bend is safer for your ACL than anything that reduces knee bend. The only time I've ever felt a twinge on the ice and felt the need to get my skate off the ice to protect my knee is where my legs weren't bent much and someone either leaned on me in the slot or otherwise forced me to shift my weight on fairly straight legs with weight on that leg when I wasn't expecting or planning to shift my weight. Other than that, as mentioned, anything that increases the amount of time your foot is planted with weight on it increases the risk of an ACL injury, although more indirectly, (such as where you have to react or where someone forces you to shift your weight) versus directly (such as from the normal forces generated by your natural stride). I use a very aggressive forward pitch and I believe that the risk to your ACL increases with the amount of time you spend leaning less forward, especially if your stride is more naturally forward.

Tough to beat a wife willing to stand by the glass all game, but compare her reaction to goals in 2014 and 2018. 2014 (7 Red): https://www.dropbox.com/home/Good Ol Boys games/Boys vs. BS%26B 2-9-15?preview=Chas+Blue+Moon+from+Dave+%26+Steve.mp4 2018 (21 Green): https://www.dropbox.com/home/Mallards vs. Aces 5-30-18?preview=video-2018-05-30-21-21-38.mp4

Don't toss your shit, because you never know when you might change your mind; just put in storage or whatever. You really never know when the itch might hit you again. I'm 57 and sorry I didn't play at all between 28 and 53; I never really stopped intentionally: I just skipped a season, which became 2 seasons...and then 25 seasons. Started thinking about it in 2013 because there was a new rink that opened up right near me (since closed for good) and the wife and I started talking about hockey during the Winter Olympics that year. You may just decide to skate for the workout someday or get on the ice with your kids if you end up having any and you're going to hate having to get all new shit because you tossed yours out. Right now, I'm sidelined with a badly herniated L-2/L-3 disk and my main concern about it is just getting the F back on the ice; I'm just hoping this doesn't cost me more than one 6-month season. It happened 7 weeks ago and I'm hoping to be able to start skating on my own again after 3-6 months and then be ready to play again by next April or May. Had to withdraw from my team and miss the whole second half of the season that just ended. The 50+ league I've played in for the last 4 years is mostly the same 90 or 100 guys split up into 6 different teams every 6 months. It's very cool to know and play with and against the same core group of guys every season for years, even if you don't really hang out with any of them outside of seeing everybody at games and sticks & pucks when any of them has the time to practice during the week. I tend to be very outgoing within any group I'm already organically a part of but practically a loner-hermit otherwise and totally self-sufficient and content never to go out of my way to socialize at all (unless you count strippers). Social connection was the last thing on my mind when I started playing again, but I have to admit that I do miss that aspect of it, now that I'm out.

We're not really disagreeing. Anytime you change something about your skates (or do anything athletically that's new to you, more generally), the muscles involved will work differently and in ways that are new to them and they'll get sore in places reflecting those differences until they adapt. As they become used to it, the soreness goes away. It's not that they don't also become stronger in the process; but the critical difference between being able to balance on an edge without support and not being able to isn't really a matter of the strength of those muscles, per se. If it were, in principle, you'd also be able to improve your skating without laces by exercising those same muscles on a weight machine designed to provide resistance in every plane of ankle movement. That's not the case, and all the targeted ankle-strength resistance training in the world wouldn't enable you drop eyelets and skate as well as lacing them up, because what you're really doing with this kind of thing is training your brain and your brain-muscle connection, rather than strengthening muscles, exactly as you describe right here: This is all I'm saying: the critical component here is neurological learning rather than increased muscular strength of the muscles involved.

Take it from someone who comes from as far from that as anybody could ever get, that the less ankle support you can practice with the better it will be for your skating. The sooner in your development you do it, the better, because your skating won't have to get worse first without the support before you see benefits. For someone my age who relied on a lot of lateral ankle support from day one, it would probably not be possible to relearn to skate without support and ever expect to skate much better than someone who first learns to skate in his 50's. I'm amazed at your description, because if I took out my laces, I would LITERALLY not be able to walk across the dressing room, let alone get on the ice to try "careful stops" NFW. It's not that you can skate better without laces; it's that if you learn to skate without a lot of lateral support, you can get onto and get more out of your edges in every respect. You can also flex both your knees and your ankles more, and probably open your hips more, too. But you don't go right to lace-free skating; and that's not the way you should try to incorporate the idea into your training. What you want to do is reduce the lateral support gradually and only after you're already able to skate as well as possible (for you) at your current support level, or if you haven't started yet, at the first support level that you drop down to from whatever you're most comfortable with now. Lace-free would be the final level but most of the benefit is already reached by the time you're skating comfortably and playing with the top one or two eyelets not laced up. There's a guy who played for the Kings in the 80s (Daryl Evans) who coaches and plays in AHL Alumni games with his tongues flopping forward and curling over his toe caps. We get it, Daryl: you can skate without laces; you can tuck your tongues into your skates and loosely tie a few eyelets and also avoid a stupid injury from catching a pass on the bare foot. Just tie a little looser and/or skip an eyelet at the top and try to increase the loosening once your comfortable at the previous step. Some of us have had this discussion in many different contexts, but it's not really "ankle strength" that's at issue. The Muscles are involved but it's really the neuromuscular connection between brain and muscles that provide critical balance at different levels. When your nervous system has to fire the small muscles near your ankle regularly, it lays down neural pathways that become thicker and stronger, involving more nerves in a larger network communicating signals to and from your brain to balance you. That's the main change that occurs in body tissue, not the muscles in your legs and feet, What's usually referred to as "strong ankles" in connection with skating are more accurately described as well-coordinated ankles. Try loosening up a bit for part of practice sessions until you feel comfortable enough that way to play a game; then continue repeating that process by going progressively looser as you get more and more comfortable with less lateral support. I'm not a bad skater with my taped-locked ankles; but I'd be a much better skater today if I'd hung in there without taping up at 14 as a shortcut to faster improvement than I was making at that time without tape, taking my time to build up to skating well with less support. No. 10 in Maroon. https://www.dropbox.com/home/red vs white 10-23-16?preview=20161023_210649.mp4

Scott Marwin is the guy I'd have do it; he uses a direct lateral approach. But I'm still hoping to go as long as possible without it. Played well tonight and feel pretty good so far; will have a better idea sleeping tonight and seeing how it feels tomorrow. I'm amazed that you were skating again in August. One of my teammates also started skating again only 2 or 3 months after his resurfacing and he was playing again in 6 months. I know that's not me, though: slow healer and I'd need to be back in whole-body shape first, not just skating. I feel like I'll be lucky to be playing again after a full year.

I'm also a candidate for THR, but I've been trying to postpone it as long as possible by limiting my skating time, always using the door instead of hopping over the boards, and doing my hip exercises on my gym leg days. It hadn't been bothering me for the last 2 years until a couple of weeks ago because I gradually started skating too much again, between my own games, subbing for other teams in my league, and sticks & pucks once or twice a week. Skipped my last 2 games to rest the last 8 days hoping it would calm down again. Got a game tonight. If it's still an issue, going to rest 2 full weeks this time and hope it goes back to where it was until it flared up again. If I do it, it's going to be Birmingham resurfacing instead of THR; but I'm scared shitless about any major surgery where they paralyze you, because of the nightmare scenario of anesthesia failure with no way to communicate that you're awake and feeling everything. (It's rare, but if you're one of the thousands of people to whom it happens annually,* the fact that it's "rare" isn't much help while you're the one enduring something as bad as any Medieval torture for 2 hours.) I'm also pretty sure that it will be at least a full year before I'd be playing again and I dread having to start all over (again), so just trying my best to appreciate and enjoy playing as much as possible right now. *[Just trust me on this so I don't have to dig up links to the the peer-reviewed JAMA and NEJM studies. It does happen, and much more often than anybody considering surgery would like to believe.]

Gotchya. I didn't notice any difference between the feel of the Bauer NXGs and the Grafs, myself. I was amazed at how much better the lateral support was compared to the old Supremes and Tacks, but I just couldn't find a happy medium in those new boots that allowed me enough lateral support without limiting my forward ankle flex. If I tied them tightly enough for lateral support, I couldn't bend my knees; and if I left them looser, I didn't have enough lateral support to stop and cross under confidently.

I'm not familiar with Skiboot skates at all or with what part of Jeremy's video you're referring to; but the one tremendous advantage to Langes is that there's literally zero break-in time. I can put my holders onto any "new" (meaning newly-purchased) boots and play in them immediately. Within the same model, the liners are interchangeable and can just be swapped out with others if they wear out or if they're still not dry from the last time I used them. I've collected even more liners for these than boots. I've noticed that there definitely was an issue of quality control in that the ankle-hinge placement is much better on some pairs than on others. You can see that from the amount of space between those four molded lines running down the uppers and along the lower boot: on some of them, the gap is much bigger than on others and it has to do with where the rivet holes were originally drilled. That does make some of them better for me than others; but comfort-wise, even a brand new pair of these skates feels exactly the same as whatever pair you've been using. The new ones are actually more comfortable, because the liners haven't been compressed for hundreds of hours of skating and are a little thicker. More often than not, the ones I've found on eBay weren't used for serious hockey, judging by their overall condition and by the amount of steel left on the original blades: they were probably just used for recreational skating or occasional pickup hockey. You can tell which ones were probably used for organized hockey because they show all the yellow and white paint marks from the boards and because the tongues are pretty beaten up from lace bite.

Just got notified that delivery has been postponed from July to sometime in October. Not thrilled about that at all.

IMO, they're either going to explode if they make a very noticeable difference in skating or die out just like other failed technological "revolutions" if the don't work or if any difference in only marginal. I was already out of the game before composite sticks completely (or nearly completely with the exception of some old-timers) replaced wood sticks, so I didn't witness how long that transition took to filter down and become universal; but that seems like a comparable example. If composite sticks only made a slight difference, there wouldn't have been much of a market for them beyond the most elite levels where players don't pay for anything and where even the slightest advantage is worth paying around 5x to 10x more for each stick. The last time I played before coming back 4 years ago, there were only a few guys on my team even using composite shafts and replaceable wooden blades. How many wooden sticks (or blades) do you see nowadays, even in recreational leagues and pickup? If these things work as advertised, they're a lot cheaper compared with what everybody's skating on now than composite sticks are vs. wood sticks. Of course, if they work but don't hold up under playing conditions, then, they'll probably be used primarily at the elite levels (assuming they're approved for use) where neither cost nor inconvenience is an issue, exactly as suggested by Santos and others.

He tested the model they called "Laser 3" like the pair on the far left of my first photo. They were a later (slightly cheaper) model to the original "Comp" (probably short for "competition") that all the pros wore until the "Laser 5" came out around '77. The Laser 3 had a thinner, less-protective felt tongue covered by a top layer of synthetic "leather" and the Comps had a thick protective tongue with some semi-rigid material inside. You can see the cheap tongue on Jeremy's model. I wore those tongues-out as in my avatar; the other tongue really can't be flopped over. The original Comp and the entry-level Laser 2 both had 2 eyelets on the upper boot; the Laser 3 and Laser 5 both had 3 eyelets. It's the Laser 5 that you see in most of the old photos of Esposito, Duguay, Greschner, and McTavish (the last helmetless NHL'r) with the Lange symbol on the outside of the boot near the toe-cap and the brand name going up the ankle instead of along the lower boot. The Laser 2 was shaped more like the other Lasers but only had 2 eyelets. My Laser 3s don't have the original tongue because I cut the tongues out of another pair of Comps to make an upgraded liner for them. All of them had removable liners but the tongues were attached to the boot in the original Comp; all of the Lasers had tongues attached to the liners. One reason I've bought more skates than I need is that I've cut the tongues out of Comps and used them to create a half a dozen upgraded liners that all now have attached Comp tongues. Hey, think it's too late to start a review thread on these? [Edit: I'm not 100% sure the other 2-eyelet model was actually the Laser 2; that's just my assumption about the earlier-looking Laser model with 2 upper eyelets instead of 3. I picked up a pair of those but there's was nothing indicating the model and I tossed them after harvesting the liners. They could be Laser 1, which I've never heard of but could have existed, in which case, I don't know what the Laser 2 was. There was also at least one other later model that seemed lower-end than Laser 5 but had a more modern leatherish liner. I bought and then resold a pair of those on eBay, too.]

I consider it more "staying prepared" than "hoarding," but, yeah, I guess so. I probably have about a dozen pair, but they all cost me less than 1 new pair of modern skates. (I tried and already resold modern Bauer NXGs and Graf 5035s at a 50% loss on each...just couldn't skate the same in them.) Some of the Langes were close to $100, but I picked up most of them for $25 to $50, mainly just for the spare liners. Currently using the pair on the right. Backup pair is the other set of "Comps" in the yellow laces; and I also have the Laser IIIs on the left set up. The ones with the old tube blades are going to get the MBs when they come in (check out those 1970s laces). I rotate 3 sets of Icetek steels and wish I'd bought more holders and steels from the guy who had 10+ available on eBay a few years ago. Jeremy (How To Hockey) tried out a pair of Laser IIIs here and gave them a pretty good review, despite using only one with one of his modern Bauers on the other foot. I think he'd have liked them a lot better and he'd have been able to skate approximately as well as he normally skates if he'd have put an edge on them and just worn them on both feet for a real test. (He seemed to think that the plastic tips on the back of the blades were unique to Langes and said he couldn't fit them into his Sparx machine because of them. They were actually common to all of the old tube steels, regardless of manufacturer, before plastic holders came out in the late 70s.)

I suspect they'll just allow you go with a larger radius for more glide without sacrificing tight turns as much because the (first-occurring) pivot point becomes the vector of wherever your weight is transmitted from the sole of your foot through the boot instead of where the blade meets the ice. The glide/turning trade-off will still exist, but I think you might just get tighter turns than you would normally for a given radius. So skaters who normally go with a flatter profile will be able to turn better on them and players who normally go with a smaller radius will be able to use somewhat flatter profiles without sacrificing as much maneuverability. I'm very comfortable on the dual 8'/13' radius done by No-Icing that I've been using for the last 2 years; so I'll ask them what profile they'd recommend on MB. All I know is I'll probably be the only asshole in the world with 2017 blade technology mounted on 1970s boot technology, because I kicked in for 2 sets about a year ago and already have a "new" spare pair of Lange boots ready and waiting for them. Not messing with the setup I have on my current skates until I've tested them out.

Welcome. I signed up here exactly 4 years ago, shortly before getting back on the ice for the first time in 24 years at 52. No doubt, the first time was brutal; but it comes back. Just go to sticks & pucks a couple of times a week and you'll be ready to play again in a couple of months. Everything comes back except for the speed and reflexes that you'd have lost anyway just by virtue of aging. If you haven't stayed in shape in the interim, you should just start working out and doing some cardio. That's something I never stopped doing and I know it would have been a lot harder to start playing again if I had. Been playing in a 50+ league, sticks & pucks once or twice a week, and doing clinics whenever I can ever since.

I recommend not responding to a 9-pg thread based only on reading the first post on P.1. The guy has come a very long way and has posted videos of his progress all along.

You might also want to pay attention to whether something in the way you lace and/or tape your skates is different with your pads on. I always had the opposite situation, because of the way I tape my skates around the bottom of my shin pads, which is impossible to duplicate without them. When I was an NNHA (now HNA) instructor, I always wore my shin pads whereas other instructors and coaches almost always just go with skates and gloves. If you normally put your skates on last, try putting them on first, because you might be pulling your laces and tying them with different tension when you already have your gear on.

PuckPilot, I don't mind having this conversation, but you sound a little hostile or worked up about it. I'm not arguing with you or ridiculing you; I just disagree with your conclusions and I believe your analogy doesn't hold up to analysis. This is just a discussion about a topic to me and not meant to offend you. First, some of the best hockey players I've ever known have been pretty scrawny, despite having done hockey drills for most of their lives. Second, if hockey developed muscles, many hockey players would have noticeable builds that corresponded to hockey to the naked eye, exactly the way athletes in sports whose training often does build muscles often do, like gymnastics, wrestling, and swimming. Third, if you could see some of the fossils I play with now, you'd agree that muscle mass is no prerequisite for hockey skills. (Elite players do often have something of a build nowadays, but that's mainly because all elite athletes do much more weight training now than they used to. Pro baseball players all look like NFL corners and safeties now, also; but it's not because playing baseball builds muscle.) Interestingly, skating does seem to build muscles much more often for women than for men, which probably has to do with women, in general, having better natural potential for lower-body development than men. But just because an athletic activity also builds muscles doesn't mean that the muscular development is directly necessary to performance in that activity. The muscular development that some people do get from skating (or tennis) is just a byproduct of the activity. If they stop playing, they lose skill the same way you lose foreign-language skills if you don't use them for a long time; but if they can't skate well the first time they get back on the ice, it's not because they lost muscle mass in their legs. While this is purely anecdotal, I've been lifting weights my entire life and was way too into it in my 20s and 30s and I played hockey until I was 30. I also did some personal training when I was in law school and I managed a couple of different gyms. If anything, playing hockey always interfered with maintaining the best build I (and others) could maintain through weight training. (And to whatever extent you need the hockey cardio to keep your body fat lower, any kind of cardio will do the same for you.) Even now, at 55, playing hockey a few times a week only makes it harder to maintain whatever build I'm managing to maintain. All of this sounding very familiar to me, so I think I've (also) explained before that your experience skating again after losing a lot of muscle to an illness has caused you to overemphasize the importance of muscular development to hockey. Just notice the difference in the way that (many) people who do something very physical for work and the way laypeople climb ladders, move furniture, walk around on I-beams, (or even just tried to load boxes on store shelves without looking like a spaz by comparison). The way the pros do all that shit so smoothly is repetition, exactly as you mentioned, but what that repetition builds is mostly neural connections in your brain and pathways in between your brain and the nerves and muscles involved. If you lose half your muscular bodyweight (or whatever) to illness, you can't really do much of anything you were doing before that happened to you because a certain amount of muscle mass is necessary to function. However, it just doesn't follow logically from that to a conclusion that the primary benefit of those repetitions is that they build muscle tissue.

I thought the same thing when I read PuckPilot's post and I think we've had this discussion before, but I'm not sure. You (PP) might be relying too much on your experience with a unique situation and assuming that it's more applicable than it is more generally. Certainly, if you lose a lot of muscle mass from an illness, you'll have a harder time doing anything that you used to do more easily; but it doesn't necessarily follow from that that strength is the most important component (or even a significant component at all) of that activity. I agree with Vet88 that skating (and soft hands and good shot) are all much more about coordination and technique rather than strength. In my opinion, if you took a test group of developing players and gave 1/3 of them only 4 extra hours of hockey drills per week, 1/3 only 4 extra hours of strength training, and you gave 1/3 of the group 4 hours of each type of training, you'd find that the group with only strength training improved the least (if at all), and that the two groups with the extra hockey drills would have improved significantly, but that there would be little if any difference between the amount of improvement in the two groups that received more hockey training in terms of hockey skills that can be observed and measured. The groups receiving strength training might only be stronger physically against opponents and have more stamina than before.