puckpilot

It all comes down to preference. Some will love it. Some will hate it. I mean has anyone ever seen a Datsyuk pro stock blade? It's a damn canoe paddle. But it seems to work for him.

FYI, there are 55 flex intermediates. Also, how tall are you? I'm 5'5 and I use 52" junior sticks. Some of them I add plugs to. Some are just perfect uncut. Just recently with True and with Bauer's 2N pro, the 50 flex junior sticks are made long. True's sticks are 54" and the new 2N pro is 53". Generally intermediate sticks are around 57" uncut. In addition with the 2N, the blade size and shaft dimensions are the same as an intermediate stick. As far as I know, this is the only junior stick that's like this. The rest have smaller shaft dimensions. Some significantly smaller, others, like CCM only slightly.

It's all personal preference. But there's always give and takes. A lower lie may help you keep your blade flatter, but it may make it more difficult to get your weight over the stick to take a shot. Etc. With that said, there's a simple solution to getting all of your blade on the ice without changing your lie or the length of your stick. Simply rotate your wrist and close the blade face. When you catch a pass, you really don't want your blade to be completely vertical. You want to close the blade and cup it. My 2 cents.

If you've never profiled your old skates, I suspect over the lifetime of your old skates the radius became smaller and smaller with each successive sharpening and you got use to the smaller radius. This is natural. This is why it's recommend that you profile your skates every year to prevent this. With your new skates, you're skating on a larger radius than you or old skates. I believe the stock radius is 10', which is pretty typical and pretty good for turning, agility, etc. You can get them profiled or you can just wait and get used to them. For me I went from a 10' radius to a 12' and it took me a couple months before I stopped feeling the difference and it started to feel natural. I'm on the ice at least 3 times a week.

IMHO, you should try to reach a certain level before you start looking towards changing profiles to improve your performance. From your description, I humbly say that I don't think you're there yet. I'd suggest working on the basics and drill them in over and over. One of the keys is balance. If you don't have your weight over the right part of your skate at the right time, you make things infinitely more difficult. If your too far over your toes or too far back, you're constantly fighting not to face-plant or fall on your arse. A starting point is getting comfortable gliding backward on two feet with good knee bend and weight distributed evenly across all the edges. How straight a line you can do this is an indicator of how good your balance is. From here move to a one foot glide, and of course c-cuts. I know simple gliding is elementary and probably very boring to do, but its a foundation from which you build your backwards stride. If your foundation is shaky, so will everything else that you built on it.

Here's some pics describing how I do things. I lace and tighten as normal until I reach the 4th eyelet from the top. I then add a runner's loop there as shown in the pic below. Step 1 Step 2: I then run the laces to the top eyelet skipping the eyelet second from the top. Step 3: I then cross and thread the laces down through the runner's loops and pull tight. When I do this, it feels like my foot is being sucked back into the heel pocket. Then I tie as normal. This kind of works like those heel straps in roller skates. I find this gives me great heel lock and plenty of forward flex without sacrificing any lateral stability. There's plenty of room for tweaking. I've tried moving the loops up and down the eyelets, and I've tried threading the laces through the 2nd eyelet from the top instead of the top eyelets to give me even more ankle mobility. The only draw back I found is that I sometimes have to cinch up my laces a little more after warm up to make sure they're tight enough. Any way, hop this helps.

I'm guessing a little here, but before the bake, the liner material is more "fluffy". When you bake and lace the skates tight, the material compresses to the shape of your foot. If you're not lacing your skates as tight as they were in the store, which can be difficult with new skates, then they'll feel loose and it'll be more difficult to keep your heels locked in. A solution I use to address heel lock is to adopt a different lacing method that helps push my heel into the boot, as well as using a skate tightener.

This might have changed with the newer skates, but in the past CCMs were pitched more forward compared to Bauers, which are more neural in pitch. But now days, it doesn't matter because you can get your blades profiled to have the same pitch as what you're used to, eg neutral pitch to match your Bauers. No need to swap holders, unless you really want to.

To a certain extent I agree. I mean if you go in thinking that stick A is going to make you twice as good and you're going to get 50 goals in 10 games, then you're barking up the wrong tree. BUT, there is a point where getting the preferred specs does help and going outside of them hinders. Too, high a flex, and you can't shoot properly. Too heavy and it's more difficult to to do certain things, specifically with one hand. ETC. We all have our quirks. Mine's flex. If it doesn't flex to my liking then nothing else about the stick will matter. I could probably get away with using a flex that isn't to my liking or right for me--actually, I did for many years--but why should I when I have the means and the opportunity to get a stick that fits my preferences? I mean isn't that why you're looking at the 2N, having never used your 1N 2017? It's not the arrow. It's the Indian. I agree, but you can't give someone an arrow made completely out of lead and a bow covered in thorns and expect them to preform at their best.

Be careful, Bauer changed their naming system. The top tier stick is called the 2N Pro. The stick on the second tier is called the 2N. That may explain the price.

If you're looking for more rib protection, you might have a better time just getting padded base layers, instead of trying to track down old gear.

Have you checked out BASE custom hockey sticks?

From my experience, I always shoot better off ice and every stick feels pretty good. I find it's because, everyone is more balanced off skates, and can shift their weight more easily to get more power. In addition, there's more friction, so getting the stick to flex properly is easier, and because there's no snow on the blade, it's easier to generate spin on the puck, so shot comes off hotter. As for shooting with a bare blade. I've only done this a few times at stick and puck while contemplating only covering the toe of my blade with tape. Yeah, it'll feel different. I find tape acts as a dampener. Without it, the puck feels more lively. When the blade gets wet, it doesn't have anywhere near the grip that tape has. But for me, it didn't didn't drastically change anything enough to make me want to not have tape over all of my blade.

What profile you choose will depend on what issues you want to address. From your brief description, it could be something to do with your pitch. Bauers are pitched more backward when compared to CCMs, so they'll put you back on your heels more. The first thing I'd try is to pitch them forward +1 and see what that does for you before going too complicated. I went from Ribcores to Nexus in my last skate upgrade. I found that I was having issues with stability and bite. I never had my skates profiled before so I kept things simple as possible. I went from the stock 10' radius to a 12' radius and did a +1 pitch. Worked like a charm.

How well does the new taper work in regards to preventing the blade from opening up compared to the old QRL?

Not an expert, but generally speaking, the boots today, outside of baking, don't change. Your feet will change before you boot does. If your boot goes soft, it means the material is breaking down and your skates are nearing the end of their life cycle. What does change is the liner inside. It will wear down and compress, and open up a little more space for your feet. From my experience, a little uncomfortable tightness is OK. At worse case that can be stretched/punched out by the shop and will improve as the liner wears down. I usually try imagine what it'd be like to have the skates on for 3 hours or more. If the thought of that fills me with dread, then it's probably a big strike on that particular skate. As for pressure points, same sort of thing. I imagine that point rubbing and pushing against my skin several hundred times as I pound my feet into the ice. If I think there's going to be a healthy dose of pain to go along with that, then it's a strike. Pressure points can be punched out, but I try to be cautious and pick my battles with them. If there's a pressure point right where the toe box meets the rest of the skate, that's usually a big no go for me.

If you have the right tools, and if you have someone who know how to design something like this to help you avoid major pitfalls, then yeah, sounds like a very doable project. As with a lot of things if it was really easy to do, everyone would be doing it. Cause often the simplest things can turn into the biggest pain in the butt. Good luck with your project

Yeah, not an expert, but there is a significant difference in stiffness. When my nephew was ready for new skates last year my brother got him a pair of Supreme 180s in Junior. My nephew's old skates were yth Supreme 190s. With the yth skates, I could pinch the sides of the cuff together with one hand. I couldn't do that with the juniors. I'm not sure how much of the advanced features make it into a yth skate. From the feel, not much, but it's not like it's going to make a difference at this stage In addition the juniors gave my nephew a weird pain right in the middle of foot, and he ended up using his old skates for another year while we tried to diagnose the issue and get it fixed. Tried all the various foot beds, rebaking, various lacing methods, and talked to the people at the LHS and even went to a pediatrist, who told my brother to just wrap his arches until he got stronger, which was no help. No one had a clue of what was going on. Finally, I just pulled the footbed out and had him skate in the naked boot. The pain went away. This told me it was a width issue. Had the sides stretched out a little and problem was finally solved. It took us literally the whole season to troubleshoot this.

I had the same issues with volume and had to go with Nexus. To address the heel width issue, I got some felt insoles from the dollar store, cut them up, and velcroed a palm size piece to each side of the ankle/heel area of each skate. You could choose to glue them in, but I wanted the option to reposition the felt and/or replace it when it wore down.

When I was shopping for skate a couple of years ago, the choices narrowed down to Supreme S190s in EEs and Nexus N9000 in a D. I went with the Nexus because I'm a grown man in size 4.5, so I had volume issues, otherwise ideally, I'd be in Supremes. The length, width, and general fit profile suited me better, but didn't want to mess with lace bite. No thanks to messed up tendons. My LHS has the 30 day fit gaurantee, so I got to skate in both skates several times. To me the toe box was a little wider in the Nexus but not enough to make a difference for me. But there was a significant difference in the toe box height. I had to put some power foot inserts in to make it workable in that area, and then I had to add felt padding to the ankle area to get propper heel lock. Didn't take long to get the fit into the right ball park, but I've had to do a lot of tweaking to dial things in, but with my small feet, making tweaks to my skates isn't new to me. Though, at times, I wonder how things would have worked out if I chose Supremes. Meh, probably same boat, different name.

How are you making the comparison? Is it with in-hand sticks or from photos? My guess would be factory error or an optical illusion in a photo.

Nicola Tesla's 162 birthday?

I don't know anything about these skates, but IMHO, thinking like that could lead you down the wrong path. From Bauer's past shady business practices, there's reasonable doubt in my mind, that it's possible that they didn't necessarily always concern themselves with who licenses their parts as long as they have the money. https://www.tsn.ca/owner-of-bauer-hockey-accused-of-fraud-and-trying-to-deceive-the-market-1.549259 For me, I'm always cautious about things like this. I'm always thinking about the too good to be true situations. To me, if the whole skate is about the same cost as the holders and runners on their own, it kind of says something about the overall quality of the rest of the skate. Any way, it's your money, and your choice.

It depends on what his personal needs are. Take two inches off, and maybe, he'll need to bend his knees more, helping all parts of his game, from balance to shot power. Drop the lie, and he'll be able to get his hands away from his body further and still maintain blade contact with the ice, which may help his his shot and puck carrying skills.

That chip could decrease the life of the stick/blade. I'd make a stink just on principle. Even if you don't get your money back, put a black mark on the seller's rep. Sellers like this are counting on a buyer being a nice guy and not making a big deal.