puckpilot

For me, Warrior feels 5-10 flex lighter than every thing else. I find True and Bauer to be similar to each other and CCM to feel slightly stiffer than Bauer/True.

I'll just make my own. It's easy, see.

I had this happen to me this past January. Went right through my gloves. Not fun. Nurse said, "This is what we call a partial amputation." It's your life, but as some who just went through a broken/partially amputated pinky tip from beer league, count yourself lucky and get gloves that protect you properly. I was wearing gloves and the slash went right through the padding in my glove. I've been playing 35+ years, and this is the first time anything like this has happened, but I don't want to know what it would have been like if I wasn't wearing gloves. It's been four months, and though the bones are healed up, the torn flesh still doesn't feel or look right. If you're worried about clunky gloves, I'd suggest asking your local hockey shop to add some padding to the top of your ring finger. Any ways, I'll shut up now.

The pic looks like the ones I have. They're velcro. https://www.amazon.ca/Elite-Hockey-Lace-Bite-Gel/dp/B00VEEVV2M/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=lace+bite+pad&qid=1587587924&sr=8-6

If you like the glide, have you considered playing around more with your profile? If you want more bite and want to keep the glide, get a flatter profile. You may loose a bit of agility, but that might not affect you much if at all in the long run. But at the end of the day there’s no free lunch. It’s about what you want to sacrifice to get a gain. For me, I played around with profile, hollow, and pitch until I got dialled in on what I wanted.

For me, it's been the opposite. The more shallow I went, the less often I would need to sharpen my skates, because it's harder to ding them up. For reference I went from 5/8 to 3/4 to 13/16 and am on a 13/26 radius. I can go for a month or two without sharpening, and I was on the ice for 3-4 times a week. Have you considered that maybe the shallower hollow isn't right for you?

First thing you can try is to take some footage of yourself shooting and see if you're doing what you think you're doing. Sometimes, we're not as low as we think we are, or we're not doing something as much as it feels like we're doing it. Sometimes, even though it feels like we're over exaggerating, it turns out it's still not enough. Second, I used a p92 and a p28. Shooting low isn't exactly my goto, but here are some things that came to mind. - Release a little earlier. Drive the puck hard, but shorten up on your follow through. -Try releasing off different parts of the blade. With a p92, if it's on the toe, it's going up. Maybe a little more off the middle of the blade or even the heel. -Try more of a sweeping follow through. What I mean by that is, try and keep the toe of the blade on the ice even on the follow through. - Try getting the top hand out more away from your body. The further out your top hand is the more it closes the blade and reduces the initial loft of the blade on the start of the shot. And finally, maybe try looking at some NHL video of players shooting 5-hole. See if you can pick up some things that you can try. Here's one I found. Some are dekes, but there are some nice low shots mixed in.

Have you considered that you can address the lace bite in the Vapors with eyelet extenders or option B skate straps? I use the latter, and they're great. Ugly as heck, but my feet thank me for them. If you don't want to try and work with the Vapors and would rather get new skates, IMHO, right now, I'd stop and think about what you're doing. You've got into two new pairs skates so far in the hopes they work, but they didn't. You're about to get into a third skate, without any guarantees that they'll work either, because you're having trouble finding stock to try on, which sucks. I'd start doing the math on how much you've spent. How much you're about to spend, and compare that to what it would cost to get custom skates, and think about if that might be a better to save up and go with that option.

I had something similar. It started with light muscle spasms just below the deltoid. Then my arm would go numb and tingle. That progressed into fingers numb and pain referred down my arm. Then it went into full pinched nerve, shoulder pain, referred pain, and a month of agony. Went to doctor. X rays showed some wear on a disk. Scared the shit out of me. Went to physio. They gave me stretches and exercises. In a week the pain went from like a 7 to a 2. It was muscle tightness around my shoulders, specifically some muscles in around my peck/armpit area clamping down on a nerve. Took me a few months of stretching all the muscles in my neck and around my shoulders to get things to where there was no pain. It was an hour of stretching every day during that time. The problem tries to raise its head from time to time, but I recognize the feeling and nip it in the bud with regular stretching.

No, what I'm saying is when you "finish" your stride, there's less "toe" to push off on, so you lose power. But it feels easier because your finish doesn't require a last bit of effort, so you're not generating as much speed/power/efficiency in each of your strides. As for quick starts, are you sure you're actually starting off quicker, or is it just that it feels that way because it's easier to have a higher stride frequency? Just because your feet are moving fast does not mean your body as a whole is travelling at a high velocity.

Some things to consider, the actual profile edge is, from my research, is only about 1-2 inches of that 60% of the runner you're talking about. Everything else is the gradual transition from that profile edge up to your toe. That transition will get more aggressive or less depending on the length of your runner AND how much "toe" or "heel" you have. The less "toe" or "heel" you have the more aggressive/steep that transition curve will be. Generally, this will make the skates less stable as you rock off that profile edge and it quickly transitions up to the toe. Think trying to keep an upside down pyramid balanced vs something shaped like a rocking chair. Now striding on a runner with less toe will fee easier, but IMHO, that's because you're not required to put as much power/effort into finishing your stride off, which will result in less power imparted into your stride and thus less speed. It's kind of like pedalling a bike on low gear vs a high gear. With a low gear, you have pedal more to get the same results, but each push is easier. Versus the power and effort required to do one push on a high gear. IMHO, if you chop off your toes, there's a real possibility you'll end up losing power in your stride and make you less stable. The degree in which you're affected is, in part, dependant on the length of your runner. If you have large runners, this effect will be reduced. But in general, the effect will probably feel like you're skating on an even smaller radius than the profile you're using. Coming from an old skate, if you haven't profiled your edges regularly, you were not only skating on a reduced toe with your old skates, you were probably skating on a way rounder profile. With each sharpening, skate runners tend to get gradually rounder. For me, I like lots of toe. I like feeling the bite and power when I finish my stride. When a sharpener fucked up and shaved mine off, it made the runners unusable, because I have extremely small feet/runners and the net effect was extremely reduced stability and bite. Everyone has their own unique needs based on their body type, but just remember there's no such thing as a free lunch. There are always give and takes with each tweak. For me, it's about finding the setup in which you give up the least to gain the most. And that's going to be different for everyone.

You're slightly bigger than me. I'm 5'5 175lbs. The best thing I ever did for my shot was drop flex. Unfortunately though, the best flex for me puts me into the junior stick range, 50 flex and below, and that comes with new challenges on it's own.

Another thing to think about for release is the flex some of the NHL players use relative to their weight/strength. Matthews is 223lbs and uses an 80 flex. I bet that helps him get an easier and quicker release while maintaining more stability in the blade. I don’t know about anyone else but I see beerleaguers who are not as big or strong use 80+ flexes

I don’t know if there’s a difference in release speed, but I do notice a difference in feel when loading and releasing. I find it’s a lot easier to shoot snappers with a QRE or Ribcore than a Supreme or Tacks. As for Barzel and McDavid using Tacks, do we know if they’re using the low kick version of the Tacks stick or not? And didn’t Matthews switch to an Alpha for last playoffs because he was having issues scoring? Edit: I also find if I drop flex with something like a Tacks or Supreme, they take a step towards feeling more like shooting with a low kick stick.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but closest I've ever found. 3cm Lacrosse tape that's pre-cut so it tears of in 1 and 2 cm strips. https://m.dickssportinggoods.com/p/stringking-lacrosse-tape-2-pack-16sgkusklcrsstp2plxa/16sgkusklcrsstp2plxa https://www.lacrossemonkey.com/catalog/product/view/id/292133?gclid=CjwKCAjw4ZTqBRBZEiwAHHxpfrxLiErWUeLUkLvr0CC-FG0cny7My7RfhND3mfjqQm7c8vBTycAxNBoCe_sQAvD_BwE

Doesn't seem like they have that much more than what you'd find in retail right now for Intermediates and juniors. Was hoping they'd have the option of a p28 in a lie 6. Nope. Hopefully more options to come once things have been running for a bit.

Just popping in to agree with the p30 as the curve closest to what the OP described.

For me, getting new gear isn't all that exiting. I'm more exited about finding stuff that matches what I like. Once I find it, I'm exited about having it. I try to keep up with what's coming out because I realized that doing that is much simpler than doing rushed and sometimes panicked research when I need to replace something. It also allows me to spot good deals when I see them.

I could be totally off base, but to me it sounds like you feel like you're giving everything you got to get the win, sacrificing the body, showing up to every game even when you may not feel up to it, but it doesn't sound like the rest of the team is as committed. It sounds like you're the guy, or one of the few guys, pulling the cart, while the rest are taking a free ride and waving to the pretty girls on the sidelines and getting the smiles. Do any of your teammates come up to you during or after the game and say thanks for bailing them out or thanks for keeping us in it? Cause it sucks to be underappreciated. I've been on teams where I work my ass off forechecking, backchecking, lift sticks to save goals, spring guys left and right by threading passes through multiple defenders, but nobody says a damn thing unless I'm on the score sheet. (I'll leave the gripes about missed assists for another time) While the guys who are seagulling all night, taking 2.5 minute shifts, and are like minus 4, get the nice game because they scored a couple. Stuff like that makes me not want to play, or at the very least it makes me not want to care. On the other hand, I've been on teams were everyone works their butts off, win or lose, and we may lose a lot, but there's a we'll-get-them-next-time type of attitude. It never feels like you're the only one that gives a crap and that makes it still fun to go to the rink. My 2 cents

I wear 7.5-8 shoes and size 4.5 skates. When I got my current skates, I came down from a size 5. Took me a little while to notice that I was more unstable and my foot was sliding out from under me with my underpush in my cross overs. Blamed it on user error. So spent 6 months working to correct the issue with little improvement. Then last April, I tried changing my profile to a 12' +1, and it made the world of difference. I'm in a 13' +1 profile now, and after 6 months, barely notice any loss of agility. Only notice the positives now.

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.

Was at stick and puck today and saw some guys wearing VH skates. One of them had their laces wrapped around the ankles, strangling the outside of the boot. I wanted to cry. :(

In terms of arches, from my experience, the Nexus and Supremes are quite similar. I really don't have much of an arch, and when I was last shopping for skates, these were the two skates I narrowed it down to. The differences is that the Nexus has more volume, so more space in the toe box, the fore foot, and the heel. If the Supremes work for you, you're not missing anything with the Nexus. Also, if I were to guess, CCM Tacks won't work for you. When I tried them on, it was like my arches were sitting on top of pyramids. I didn't even have to tie them up to know they weren't for me.

I'm in the same sized steel as you, and for the first time in 30 plus years of my hockey life, I got my skates profiled. I'm on size 4.5 N9000s, and I was running stock LS3 on stock profile, with a 3/8ths hollow. I followed Nicholas G's recommendation of a 12' single radius to start with. He also recommended a neutral pitch, but I went with a +1 and 5/8ths hollow. I specifically bought new LS3 steel to experiment on, because I'm in the middle of playoffs right now and wanted to be able to turn back if I had to. One of my biggest issues was my underpush slipping out on me when I tried to drive into it. Always thought it was user error, but after a few minutes on my profiled steel, I knew I made the right decision. It felt like every aspect of my skating had levelled up. For 4.5 hours I was trying everything from stop-starts to tight turns to one-foot slaloms, but most of all, I was working the crossovers. It all seemed to be clicking. I was able to push things so hard on turns and stop-starts, one of my laces broke. After 4.5hrs, I still didn't want to leave the rink because I was so excited about trying stuff just to see if I could do it. I'm usually a center but from time-to-time I fill in at defense. One of the things that I'd dread was the forward stop transitioning into the backward's crossover. It was always 50/50 whether the inside leg would slip out from under me. With the new profile, my leg wasn't slipping, and the only time I blew a tire was when I was trying to see how far I could push before it blew. For me, I didn't notice any detriment to my agility or turns. I think it might be in part to me feeling steadier on crossovers and hard turns. Or maybe it's because of the small runners. I'm liking it so much, I'm considering going up to a 13' radius, and maybe in time, I'll consider something more complex. Now, this isn't to say that I'm suddenly Connor McDavid. Not even close. I'm just saying that before, parts of my skating seemed to be stagnant. I wasn't making any progress no matter how much I practised or how much I studied technique. But making this adjustment feels like it pushed me free of that stagnation, and now, doors to being better are open. Any way my 2 cents. It's worth what you paid for it.