hkyfn

End of season VH skate update: My son has now used his VH skates for two half seasons of hockey here in New England, fall half season and high school. He has about 50 games of use along with approximately 75-100 practices. If you read the original posts, he has several issues including pronating and flat feet. So how have the skates held up? In a word: Excellent with one exception. My son is a now 18 year old, 185 pound defenseman. Been playing since the age of 5. The skates continue to be very comfortable for him. He states that they still have "no lag" from movement to action, do not hurt his feet in any area and feel as good now as when he first got them. No arch problems, no instep issues from the pronate padding and no lace bite. Watching him play I see the skates are still lined up properly from the knee down to the blade holder with the blade sitting properly on the ice. I was concerned that his pronate issue would eventually wear down the padding on the inside of his right skate and he would again have the pronate issue of only skating on his inner edge, but that has not happened. The one exception I mentioned above is that one of the copper rivets for the tendon guard popped off after a practice and we scrambled to get a new one re-installed prior to his game the next day. The second replacement rivet popped off a few days later so I found a small, black screw and sleeved nut setup, similar to what holds cobra holders on Graf skates, and used that to re-install the tendon guard. Has not come loose since. I contacted VH and they sent me out new inner padding that covered the rivet head which I glued in and problem solved. Interestingly only one tendon guard rivet came lose. The other is still holding strong. The best thing of all in this is his improvement in skating. Neither of us knew how much the pronating was affecting his skating until we got skates that corrected it. Forward, backward, initial acceleration, cornering all improved. All that brought his game up a notch which helps me to justify the additional expense of custom skates. Plus going from Graf 703's to VH, we saved some weight too. My conclusion is that these are great, custom made skates that can help players play better if they have fit issues. I can't comment on skaters that have skates that already work for them now but certainly if you have fit issues, these skates should help you. If you are a serious player, these are well worth the money.

My son has flat feet (low arches) and was only able to wear Graf 703/G3 with the Graf footbed or the CCM low footbed. Every other combination caused discomfort in his arches. I am not saying that what he has is exactly as you describe but if you can't find a comfortable set up I would try either the Graf 703 footbed if you can find it or the CCM low footbed (should be easy to find). Even the superfeet caused him discomfort so maybe you have the same condition. It does not take much to press on the arch and cause pain. If these two footbeds do not solve your arch pain then I would say it's not the arch area but something else. With the VH skates we bought, he has had zero arch pain, so we have been lucky in that sense.

I think you are on it. I have a "mechanical" background but limited overall skate and foot knowledge, so with that I see for my son there are two permanent ways to deal with the pronate issue. One is to move the holder to offset the pronate issue. We did this with the Graf's. Worked for a while and might work better with a stiffer skate if his flat feet did not hurt in say a Vapor. The other is to build a boot that deals directly with the issue. I have read on these forums and others about using wedges, etc., to compensate. I tried those fixes and consider those more as a temporary fix. I saw the MLX skate and quite frankly would have tried it on him if it were still available. Like the idea of an adjustable position holder, especially for kids skates where they outgrow them every 6 months. My bottom line is that from what I see now, I would prefer based on my son's feedback and improved skating that the custom boot is our first choice. It forces the foot to line up more as nature intended. Moving the holder to me is more of a bandage as the foot is still pronating. I am no expert but VH seems to have nailed it for us. Best of luck when you get your new VH's. I am sure you will love them.

I would also add this: 1. Before sending in the order take a lot of pictures to send with the drawings. We had Ian at Kennebec Skate Shop take additional front, side and rear barefoot shots to show visually how bad his pronate issue is. 2. Understand that since the weight distribution might be different and the fit will be different, it might take 4-5 skates to get comfortable with them. My son thought they felt weird for the first few skates, then the next time he comes home from practice and says "I love these skates, they are so comfortable". Now when I watch him play, I can visually see the improvement in his skating. I am a very picky consumer and I can say with confidence that this was a wise purchase and I would do it again in a second. Money well spent.

Ramble warning: I don't think that they moved the blade to deal with the pronate issue. They compensated by building a better boot to address this specific issue. I want to first state a disclaimer: My son is the one wearing these skates, not me. I have watched him skate from 5 years old to now (17) so I have a pretty good idea what his issues are but the comments on comfort are from him. His main pronate issue is with his right foot. Prior to making any modifications, we had him wear Graf 703 in narrow (also has flat feet, so the 703 was the only skate that had no pain) to try and lock his foot into the boot. That would work for a while and then as the boot softened up the pronate would get worse and worse and become visually noticeable (in the olden days we'd say the kid has weak ankles). It would start to affect his skating as he was only using the inner edge of his right skate blade and when real bad he would almost touch the inside wall of the outer boot to the ice when doing a quick pivot backwards. We moved the blade holder inward slightly to change the center of his weight distribution and that worked for a while but the issues kept coming back. With the VH skates, to the naked eye, they have not moved the holder to compensate. It looks to me that the holder is even with the center of his leg if you draw a line down from his thigh to the bottom of his foot. VH also said after receiving his drawings that they would not need to alter the holder location. What they did is build up the inner boot with padding so the ankle would not "roll" inward due to the pronate issue. So instead of compensating for the issue by changing the holder and therefore the weight distribution, VH altered the boot to stop the ankle from rolling inward. There is additional padding from about where the ankle bone protrudes down to the start of the bottom of the foot, all designed to keep the ankle from rolling in. The other piece of this I think is the stiffness of the boot. He can't wear other stiff skates like Vapors because of his flat feet so the Graf's would soften and then everything would go bad. The VH skates are stiff and we opted for the shot blockers to make them even stiffer. I think the other part of this fix is that since there is no space between the foot and boot, so there is virtually no room to move and start to push and stretch the boot like happened to his Graf's. In other words, the boot is forcing his foot to lay flat on the foot bed and not roll out of alignment. The best byproduct of all of this is that his skating has noticeably improved. As I mentioned I have watched him for 12 years and know his skating better than anyone. The benefits I see and he has confirmed include: 1. Faster forward straight line speed. Lighter boot than Graf and better power transfer. 2. Better use of edges. He now uses the inside and outside edges of both skates, whereas he did not use the outside edge of his right skate as it softened up and began to pronate more severally. 3. Biggest difference is his forward to backward pivot and backward skating. Previously when he pivoted to backward skating he was always searching for balance to compensate for the pronate issue with his right skate, which slowed him down. Now he does not need to worry about that so he pivots faster and get's up to speed faster. He has now worn these skates about 6 weeks or about 30 skating sessions of games, team practices and captains practices. He raves about the skates, feels he is a much better and faster skater and still can't believe how comfortable the skates are. Here is my bottom line. I wish I had bought these for him years ago when we first saw Bguffelin wear them.

30 day VH skate feedback: I would imagine that many, like me, have been reading this forum to try and decide if they should get VH skates. Hopefully for those trying to make the decision my posting will provide some information. After reading this forum for a bit and realizing that my son needed new skates, we took the plunge and placed our order through Kennebec Skate Shop in Maine in late July of '16. Got the skates about 35 days after placing the order. My son is 6'3", 175 lbs., plays defense. Has numerous foot issues including pronate issues, flat feet, narrow heels and low volume feet. Said it took about 3-4 practices to get fully comfortable. He has skated on them about 15 times now and loves them. He describes them as comfortable, light and quick in movement. No wasted "space" between his foot and skate. He is impressed with the light weight compared to his Graf 703's. His experience is that the first couple of times he skated on them they were somewhat awkward. Much stiffer boot than his Graf's. He said he has had to loosen the top couple of eyelets a bit to get some flexibility in movement compared to the Graf's. Early on he said they just felt strange. We had needed to move the right skate blade holder in on his Graf's about an 1/8 of an inch to offset the pronate issue for balance but VH said there was no need. They said they would build the skate boot to compensate for that without blade holder relocation. I think his center of balance was off on the right skate as he got comfortable in them. The boot has "fixed" his pronate issue with extra padding and I am sure the stiffer boot. They have cobra 3000 holders as he wanted to same "Graf" pitch. Says they are as comfortable at the end of the game or practice as they are at the beginning. So far, feels like money well spent. I would also say the customer communication at VH as been great. Every email was responded to and all questions were answered as needed. Nice to know that when you are spending $800+ that you can get specific questions answered that makes you feel better parting with that kind of money. So far nicely done both in product and customer experience.

He is a 17 year old, 6'3", 175 lb teenager so "on" and "off" should not be an issue. The demo skates he tested were fine to get on and off. They were not specifically made for him but the sizing was close so he is not worried about it. Ian told me, and I have seen posted here, that VH orders have gone way up recently. Have to speculate it is due to Graf Canada stopping sales. It seems that many Graf customers were buying their skates for the same reasons we were, abnormal feet that makes using conventional skates difficult to get the right fit in. Graf was a lifesaver for us as we tried all other brands and nothing worked right. VH seems to have an opportunity to step into the void left by Graf. Of course we have had only one test skate session so the proof will come at the end of the season on fit and durability. My son will be on the ice 4-5 times per week from September thru March so these skates will get tested. Keeping our fingers crossed.

New to the website and appreciative of the VH forum as I just ordered a pair for my son based on what I have read here. We are waiting for new VH skates for one of my boys (with cobra holders). He has numerous foot issues, including pronation, flat feet, narrow heels and low volume feet. Has been wearing modified Graf 703's but they loosen up after a season from his feet pronating inside. We are giving VH a try, based on what I have read and from the communications back from the company. Hoping to get the skates shortly to give them a try. I will write a review after he spends some time on the ice with them. if you don't mind, I want to put in a plug for Ian at Kennebec Skate Shop in Maine. We went up there (a three hour drive) and he set us up with a demo pair of VH skates to try. Reserved the ice for us so he could go and test them. Son loved them. Ian is very knowledgeable and even came in for us on his day off to get us fitted. I know that Maine is not convenient for many people, but if you are in the area, he knows his hockey stuff and his VH skate stuff. Regarding cobra holders clicking, my two boys have worn Graf for years, and as their "unpaid equipment manager/dad" I have dealt with many cobra blades coming loose. Would always drive me crazy hearing them click on the ice. I tried double washers, periodic tightening, etc. What worked is a drop of blue Loctite on the threads before final assembly. Don't need much but they stay tight after that.