puckpilot

From a customer side of things, I agree with a lot of what's been said here. Adding my 2 cents, I live in a Canadian city. There's lots of shops and competition. Off the top of my head, there are probably a half a dozen or more places within a 15 minute drive of where I live, small retail shops, rink shops, and big chains. For a good portion of my life, I took my skates to one shop for sharpening. While I was there waiting for my skates, I'd look at sticks, pick up tape, etc. Not a problem for around 20 years. Then, i noticed they had some turnover, and they had some younger kids doing the sharpening. Suddenly, there was a problem with my edges after a sharpening. I brought them back and they fixed them. Then it happened again. I felt a little guilty, but I started taking my skates to a place on the other side of town. There are other places closer that I can go to, but this place is a small local shop that has all the bells and whistles. All the stock I could ever want to look at, and a shooting area where I can try before I buy. In all the time I've been going to this shop, not once have they messed up my skates. Add that to they have fantastic customer service, and it's a no-brainer for me. When my nephew had issues with his skates, they spent time helping him and eventually stretched his skates out for free even when they weren't even purchased there. Any way, aside form those stores, there's a local shop that popped up about 2+ years ago, no bigger than food truck. They specializes in skate sharpening and skate modding. They're known for being one of the best in town, if not the best. People bring their skates to them from all over the city. They carry odds and ends like the power foot inserts and bunga pads that nobody else in the city really stocks. Here's a link to their webpage to give you an idea of what another small shop carries. https://www.hockeyvancouver.ca/ But my general impression is that their bread and butter is skate sharpening, profiling, steel, and maybe odds and ends like tape. Everything else probably doesn't move anywhere near as fast as those. But like I said, that's just my impression, not fact.

Have you ever tried putting a sock over a taped up stick? The sock sticks to the hockey tape and wax l and you get fuzzy stuff all over the blade when you peel the sock off.

How about this? It only covers the blades, so no worry about length. You can then just put a plastic bag over your butt ends and you're more or less set. BTW, I saw these in Dollarama up here in Canada, so you might want to check your local dollar store for them if you're interested. https://www.hockeymonkey.com/ar-stick-vault.html

This video explains how the P28 curve is meant to be used, so if a player's style doesn't match up with it, that p28 is going to be more like a sand wedge compared to a driver.

Interesting. The Curtis curve for goalie sticks, the offset stick blade, the S blade curve. Will this join them on the list of nice-tries or is it truly a revolution?

I had a similar problem. I went from a 5 down to a 4.5 recently. I got my skates profiled to a larger radius. It helped quite a lot. I went from a 10 to a 12. Figured since I've never profiled my skates before, I should keep things simple at first and tweak as necessary. Later tried a 13 and didn't like it as much so went back to a 12. Didn't notice any change to my turn radius, at least not enough to make a difference, but I've been skating for most of my life. Another thing to consider is because of the size of your runner, you'll be limited in your choices of profiles. For example, my runners are too small to hold a quad radius.

Can you elaborate a little more on what the tightness is like. Is it like a vice or is it mild discomfort or simply rubbing? I always have issues with the same area. I'm in Nexus Ds and I find Supreme EEs fit about the same in terms of width in that area. Sometimes all you have to do is wear thinner socks. Other times leave that bottom eyelet a little loose or try starting the laces from the second eyelet, leaving the bottom ones unused. Other times still putting a little padding on the pinky toe area can help. my 2 cents.

If you want performance, proper fit is king. Forget the brand names. Forget the tech. Pick your price point and find the best fitting skate in that range. That's IMHO how you'll get the best performance. Ill fitting skates will hurt your performance more than any tech could ever help. Add that to the possibility of developing foot issues, like Bauer bumps, which is a can of worms you do not want to open, then to me it's a no brainer. If the skate fit is perfect for your foot then it's the best skate ever. All other skates are junk to you, no matter what they're made of or what tech they posses. If you're worried about runner size, you can get your runners profiled to a larger radius for more stability. It's what I did when I, as an adult, went from an already small size 5 to a size 4.5. I'm in Nexus N9000 Ds. In terms of fit, I'm between those and Supremes. All other skates I've tried from CCM--which included the supposedly similar fitting Tacks--and Bauer were no good, so it kind of surprises me that you're thinking of going from Vapors to Nexus. That's quite a difference, so be careful. Again, fit is king. IMHO, make that your only concern and you'll be happy. my 2 cents. It's worth what you paid.

Most intermediate sticks are around 57" from the heel of the blade to the butt end. So if you're measuring from the toe of the senior sticks the intermediates will be very close. At least close enough for you to use a plug and not have it matter. For example, I have an old Warrior Diablo intermediate 55 flex. Uncut, from toe to buttend, it measures around 64.5" when I lean it up against the wall. If you check out the product catalogues here on this site or anywhere else you can find them, they'll tell you what the exact heights are from heel to buttend.

You could try one of these padded shirts, designed for extra rib protection. Otherwise, as others have mentioned, think about if it's not your body that's the issue. I'm about the same age as you, and I recently realized that over the years, I had lost a lot of flexibility. Specifically, I had super tight hips, which is really common for hockey players. Now, you may be asking, "What the heck do hips have to do with ribs?" Well, it's all connected. my tight hips, were causing my should and rib issues. The tight hips were pulling down on the muscles above and stuff was getting misaligned and stressed. On my right side, if I twisted and leaned to my left, I could hear stuff crackling around my ribs, and if there was a pop, I'd get pain. Over the years I've had lots of pulls and strains there. A few months ago, I figured it out and started stretching my hips and stuff around the torso, and slowly but surly, it felt like I was shedding years off. All my neck, shoulder, rib, and back issues slowly faded. They still get tight, a lot of times after a game, but they now go away after a short stretch. Something to consider. Have you ever seen a physiotherapist? Any way my 2 cents. It's worth what you paid. https://www.purehockey.com/product/Code_1_Padded_Shirt_(2017)/itm/26794-41/?mtx_id=0

I went down a half size last time I got new skates. To help with stability I profiled my skates to a larger radius.

Before you do anything, try wearing thinner socks. See if that helps. If you already do that, try skating without the insole or replace the insole with one from a pair of runners. This is just for diagnosing. I wouldn't recommend skating in a game with no insole. If it's a room issue, the pain should subside or go away. Our feet aren't symmetrical. One foot is often slightly larger than the other, so a perfect fit on one skate may not be perfect on the other. If the pain doesn't subside, it may be a sign it's something else. And maybe start with a rebake before considering punching. With new skates, I always have to fiddle with the right skate

IMHO there isn't really a trick to getting up. You just have to have the, strength, balance, and agility to get a leg underneath yourself to push yourself up. Most of that comes along with becoming a better skater and just generally being comfortable on the ice. Though, I may have a skewed perspective on this. I've been on skates since I was a kid. Here's a video with a couple of drills you can try. I remember doing these during minor hockey practice.

I'm in mid experimenting right now. I usually use a P92, which from my experience is just the P28 with the pocket moved more towards the toe. I find this allows me to shoot off the toe a lot easier and with more velocity. This is because I get more flex off the blade as well as the shaft. In a way, it's almost like I'm shooting with a longer stick because I'm getting more whip. In addition, because the pocket is moved up, there's a bigger flat along the back of the blade, making backhands more easy to get off. Don't really notice much of a difference in stickhandling. But the draw back I find is that it's less forgiving as to where I snap the shot off. If the puck isn't exactly in the pocket, it'll either go super high, when too far forward, or super low, when too far back on the blade. Very little middle ground. I think this is the only thing holding me back from making the complete change. When I'm practising, it's not so hard to have the puck in the pocket, but during the game, when I'm fighting though checks, the puck isn't so nicely squared away, so way less accuracy.

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. :(

Have you considered looking into ordering skates online just to try on and get an idea of what generally fits well? From what I heard, the big online retailers allow you to order skates to try them on. As long as you don't sharpen and skate on them, you can return them. It can give you an idea of which direction to go figuratively and literally and maybe save you some travel time. Otherwise, if that's not something you're interested in. IMHO, the Bauer heavy store may be your best option. One of the issues I've had to deal with in the past was pressure points where the toe box meets the rest of the skates. My last pair of skates were RBK 11ks. I had to punch out the area around my pinky toes and add padding to make things work. When I was shopping for new skates, all the CCM skates were a no go. The arches on them were too high for me and the forefoot fit was only OK. This was before the 70K skates came out, and they're supposed to be really comfortable. But any way. I tried on Bauers and to my pleasant surprise, there were no pressure points around the toe box in the Supreme and Nexus skates. I ended up in Nexus. Of all skates on the market, the Nexus line has the most volume and thus will give you the most room for your fore foot. A standard D in the Nexus is about as wide as a EE in say Supremes or any other skate. Break in time was very minimal for me, and it didn't involve anything more than minor discomfort. That's my 2 cents. It's worth what you paid.

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.

Don't know what to tell you. I think we'll have to respectfully disagree. This is my curve of choice, and when I compare the curves of my Ek365 and my T120 to my QRLs and Alphas and all the other sticks from the other companies I have, they look exactly the same. At the very least, for me, they're close enough to not make a difference in performance.

Yep. Which are equal to the p92/wo3. It's the Crosby/Sakic curve

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.

Mid tier stuff will probably do you just fine. But if you're patient, you might be able to find last year's higher end stuff on sale for mid tier prices. If you haven't found them yet, Modsquad has some of the equipment catalogues for the various manufacturers available for you to download and checkout. The reason I'm suggesting this is that it's a nice resource that you can use to familiarize yourself with what's out there and understand what the heck all the various numbers mean. It's not rocket science, but it's a good reference. As someone mentioned check out the CCM QLT Quicklite lines and the Bauer Vapor line. These lines are designed with a more form fit to them. No more looking like you dropped a load in your nappy.

I've been mulling over changing the profile in my skates. This is an area that I've paid zero attention to, so I was wondering if someone could give me some recommendations. Right now I'm in LS3 with stock profiling with a 3/8 hollow. I'm in Nexus N9000s so I'm assuming they're 9' or 10' radius. One of the issues I'm running into now is the under-push on my crossovers. It's slipping out on me a bit when I try to drive into it and extend out, and I'm losing power and stability. Now, over the last while, I've been assuming it's user error. I'm older, less flexable, and a few years ago I got sick and lost a good chunk of muscle. But I've been really focused working on that for the last few months, youtube videos studying technique, hip stretches, one leg squats, and hours and hours and hours of ice time just working my edges and crossovers with the top three eyelets undone, but I can't seem to make any progress. So now, I'm wondering if it could be my skates. I'm 175lbs, and I'm in size 4.5 skates, so I'm wondering if it could be an issue involving not enough blade on the ice or rather not enough of a flat. I'm not sure if a smaller runner has less of a flat than a larger runner with the same radius. While googling, I found a rule of thumb calculation that said if you take your weight in kg and divided by 6.28 which is 2Pi, it will give you the ball park of what your profile radius should be. My calculation comes up with a 13' radius, which seems a bit crazy. Any way, any recommendations/suggestions are welcome.

I don't think there's a substitute for real ice. But I do think there are some dryland exercises that will help you along at least a little. Here are some links below to videos of them. The exercises are mainly for agility and to work on crossovers, but they strengthen your legs and get them used to the feel of the lateral forces that they'll deal with when you stop. You'll still have to learn how to do the stops. Another thing that might help is to let your skates go dull so they slide along the top of the ice more easily. And make sure you learn the two foot stop and distribute your weight over both skates. IMHO It'll be better for your skating in the long run if you learn that early on. The one legged stop is easier to learn and be satisfied with, but it's only half the solution if you want to be the best you can be. Hope this helps.

This shows where my head is at, but all I can see is the shiny new QR Edge stick. :p

Hahhah. A high level player on one of my teams says that eating a banana helps with this. Something in the banana makes your bowels tighten up so uhhh... less sloshing in around. I find my trigger is having a little too much liquid before or during the game.