Kgbeast

Yes, if they want to establish themselves as a major brand, they have to go with their own holder. Selling you VH holders as part of the package is another $100 to their revenue. Selling you Bauer holders is $100 in direct competitors pocket. They are nice enough offer you just boots even though selling you complete skates would have help them more. We also can not expect VH to remain the same as before, they will change a lot little by little. As demand grows, they will need to crank them skates out the door at a much higher pace which will require some streamlining. So I think the next thing that will be going, is the ability of you sending them your old pair of Levis for a custom trim options.

Hints of clown outfit to me. Not sure if this is a joke.

... a theoretical claim that is hard to prove or disprove. There plenty of pro and against opinions on this. What does this mean "improves responsiveness"? And if it does, by how many percents? The fastest and most agile are not in one piece boot as of yet.

I kind of like no laces look... http://news.adidas.com/US/Latest-News/nhl--and-adidas-unveil-new-hockey-jerseys-for-2017-18-season/s/f24dddc6-32a4-43fb-9881-d95ad87a3941

Older VH had kind of "organic" look if you know what i mean with the holder flat flanges squashed against the rounded bottom of the boot. This "black plastic piece" appears to be a kind of square peg to round hole adapter most likely as an attempt to improve the look... IMO a failed attempt at that. Or perhaps this helps to automate and speed up the holder mounting process. They probably had to heat up the holders before they could crimp it like that without breaking something. Can not see on the pic how they mitigated the front "problem". Do they have a spacer there as well? Well hopefully as a next step they will make the bottom flat (ala Supertacks). Then if they loose the dimples on Step holder, we will see a skate that is much easier on the eye. Then again, this is a hockey skate, does it really need to be pretty?

I think they would look fine if they get rid of these dimples in the front and back.

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Well regardless if they understand it or not, they will be getting a safer helmet... Once again not SAFE helmet, but safer. Without rating, they will just get one that looks like "my little pony" or "r2d2". I think the world is a better place when there is something that can sway parents from buying those :-).

When I was making this comment, it was purely to defend VT test validity specifically to the areas that they test. It would be reduction of concussion due to impact such as fall on ice or being checked into the boards as well as general impact resistance of the helmet. Face-mask and chin strap is not a factor as it applies to the specific test conducted by VT. Marka for example does not appear to be discounting the importance of the proper fit. All he says, that he would grab the highest VT score and try it on, If it does not fit right, he would sling that off and try if the next one down in VT scoring would fits better. And so on, until it is a good fit helmet, yet still with VT score. I do not see that this method of selecting a helmet is flawed in any way. I see selecting of helmet purely based on fit and disregarding results of any safety testing as more flawed. I am pretty sure you can find a helmet that fits great but has zero protection against concussion when you bounce you head off the ice. That said, I find VT test kind of like... For example if a test is performed for effects of a 50 yard shot from a 308 caliber rifle through a stack of 200 pages of copier paper vs. a stack of 2 empty pizza boxes; and it is concluded that 200 pages of paper offer a better protection against the bullet, the results of the test are not wrong, but it also does not mean that either object is adequate to be used as a bullet-proof vest. However, one can actually use this test as a bases for grabbing a pack of printer paper instead of a pizza to protect them selves from a 9mm handgun, and it actually can save the ones life depending of a distance and angle of the shot. So while VT is not testing for everything under the sun, they do gather, what I feel, an adequate amount of data for one to make some basic estimations of which helmet is safer. After all, it is not all about hard drives head first into the boards and bouncing heads on the ice, sometime it is just a stray wrist shot to the back of the head. Perhaps the difference is remaining sharp in the game vs, being a bit loopy for a few minutes. Hey, different strokes for different folks.

I am pretty sure he is talking shape of the head not size. In other words, size of helmet is right, it fits tight and does not move around... just a bit uncomfortable because it has higher pressure points here and there. In this case the helmet will protect as well as the same helmet that follows the head shape a bit better. Since dummy head does not feel pain and discomfort, it is good to go for testing less that perfectly fitting helmets and results would be valid. All they need to make sure is that they get the size of the helmet right.

Looks like the guy or gal did not like this at all. One skate and throwing them out for 30 bucks with steel? I wish this was my size...

Quality of product does not depend on country where it is made but on people it is made by. You can find poor quality in USA and Canada. All it takes is an inconsiderate management that breeds not caring work force. In case of Graf Canada, in last 3 or 4 years of their existance, quality of product produced in Canada was often crapier than of the lines made in China. I hope people would put that behind by now. Graf Canada is dead and gone, people who ran it into the ground are no longer associated with Graf and Claude Lemieux is finally properly retired and exhibits no efforts to get involved in any of the hockey equipment manufacturing efforts. So we should take a breather an move on. Discussions like in this thread are targeted not at a company that makes the skates, but at an assumption that somehow a tarnished company's name will forever plague the quality of products produced under it. If Vaughn, would have changed the name on these product from Graf to Vortex or some shit like that, their products would have been looked at with fair level of optimism such as the case with Verbero. I do not know of the quality level, nor technology, or how long they will last. Until someone buys a pair of Vaughn produced pair of Graf skates (foreign or domestic), play with them for 2-3 month, and then comeback here and writes his review, all this talk is just fumes.

I do not get how those are different from the Tuuks or whatever? Do they do something that other holders do not. Flex somewhere or what?

I am under impression that the Injection process in skates is the typical plastic injection-molding such as used in making household items. Difference however is that instead of injecting one kind of plastic in the mold, in skates they can, lay in fibers such as aramid for reinforcement and inject a few different composites of different stiffness in the different areas of the mold to make skates stuff where they need to be and soft where they need to be more flexible.

You should be able to replace tongues on any skates with use of a little bit of repositionable adhesive to positioned in properly first, then use stitching awl to stitch it in. This usually does not require great deal of skill, but you do need to be somewhat handy.

Not sure how shimming up both side at the front will compensate for turns. When you tilt the holder while keeping its front to back plane, you will see that only one side of the front mounting flange will remain in contact. Other side of the front flange will lift, and both sides of the rear flange will lift off ( in case of pronation, the inner side will lift more that outer, but both will be up nevertheless). This is because the front mounting flange is much wider that the rear. So you might want to insert properly sized spacers to fill both of the sides at the heel (medial side spacer will be thicker in case of pronation), as well as one on the medial side of the front. Perhaps it was the reference to that you thinking of. I am not sure if this is a must, or it is ok to be less anal and live with slight misalignment caused by one sided shimming. Likely, In most shops, you'd get just heel shimmed on one side.

Yes, it is a weird pic, but the skate in the picture does have heel shim as well, probably a thicker one at that. He shows that the toe is also shimmed, which is a good practice IMO.

Edit: I should have put this in Gear Sighting thread. Sorry.

60% is pretty generous and hardly worth frustration.... I was selling a set of wheels once for $450 and got an offer of $150. Obviously a short "no" was the answer, but I guess "you can't blame a girl for trying".

... from what I read, JetSpeed FT1 is not made of CF... But nevertheless, it is the same construction as SuperTacks or Mako with one piece quarter/outsole + added toebox. If it is not CF, I am wondering what is it. I never thought that CF is an optimal skate base material. Of course one CF is different from another, but I always thought nylons based materials are more suitable for hockey related abuse.

Check this thread about the holders. Keep in mind that VH has been acquired by True Hockey and perhaps communications are not as used to.Try True Hockey and inquire about your skates from them. This also means that the joint venture between Step and VH with holders may or may not have been cut short, you should contact Stepsteel about the holders and runners availability.

According to CCM, the forward pitch of sb+4 holder itself is the same as tuuk. If you to believe that, switching sb+4 to Edge holders on SuperTacks should produce no change in feel. JR, please confirm above as you are SuperTacks with Edge holder, assuming you ever tried the skates with SBs. Other than that, boot cut forward lean is the factor. I do not know how FT1 and SuperTacks are cut, but Graf boots are similar if not the same as JetSpeed forward lean. Perhaps FT1 will replace your Graf+Edge combo nicely.

According to CCM, SB+4 is the same forward pitch as Tuuk holders. The CCM boots however are angled forward more than bauer boots (especially RibCor) creating the feel of more aggressive forward pitch. I am pretty sure that VH can make the boot with the pitch of Tacks or say Nexus. You'd just need to mention this during the ordering process I guess. Therefore, you can get whichever holder you prefer. On additional note, I believe that Bauer instead of making their holders 4mm taller to match SB4+, went with idea of making taller steel (LS4 which is 3mm taller) giving the choice to the skater to have taller skate or not. So I am not sure what you want here. VH also can put Step holders, but you need to keep in mind that it would be only the less available Step steel from there on for you which may or may not be a desired thing. I am sure once you start your communications with VH many of these concerns will be cleared up for you.

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Graf goalie skates do not look like this, but these do share color scheme with peakspeed players. Does the description suggests that it is foe carbonfiber? It is pretty lame if it does. Why make it look like carbonfiber if it is not?