puckpilot

So what your proshop guy maybe referring to is that over time, as you sharpen over and over, the profile of the blade will get rounder (the radius will get smaller). This is because a lot of sharpening is done by hand, so there's variance. It's generally recommended, depending on how often you sharpen, to re-profile the steel approx every year to reset things back to your preferred profile. This maintains the consistency in what you're skating on. Imagine if every six months to a year your stick got shorter by half and inch. This is like putting that half inch back onto the height of the stick. In terms of types of profiles etc. I would say ignore it for now. Just get your skates profiled to whatever the stock profile was when you purchased them. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe stock should be a 10' profile. When you change profiles, it's about trade offs. You don't want to go in with no plan and no idea of what you're getting into. Changing profiles is about giving up a little of "this" for more of "that", in the hopes that what you gain helps you more than what you lost hinders. For example, if you went to a larger radius, you gain more stability and glide, but you give up some a agility. This applies to all profiles. Regardless of what marketing says, there is no profile that gives you everything. If there was, everyone would be using it. It's always about trade offs and what an individual wants and needs to help them along. Changing a profile doesn't cure a person's skating issues. It just gives someone who may have plateaued a nudge in the right direction.

If you want the skate to push you more onto your toes, that's a positive pitch, eg +1 pitch. A negative pitch puts you back onto your heels. You do not need to change profiles to achieve these things. This is not really a profile issue. It's a pitch issue. Simply ask for a positive pitch to be applied to your current profile. Changing profiles will unnecessarily complicate things.

I'm not sure fitting exactly to the larger foot was the best approach. I think it would have been beter to fit 1/2 larger than the smaller foot and then stretch the other skate 1/4 size larger. Then as the skate ages, the foams will compress and usually give you another 1/4 size in space. That way the smaller foot is only 1/2 size bigger, which is workable. In terms of lacing patterns, you can try this one I use to use. It really helps to push the foot back into the heel of the skate. Here's a post with pics that I put up a bunch of years back describing it. Give it a shot. Friends have described as like the boot sucks your foot in. In addition I've seen pictures of skates for kids that have adjustable sizing. Part of what makes that possible is a crescent shaped foam insert that gets placed into the toe box making the skate shorter. Maybe that's something you can try. FYI a full size is approx 8mm.

You're right. The example I gave is very much a trifle. I was trying to be flippant about it because I found the CO's quote to be... irksom. It took the basic shape of Pascal's wager, using the safety of the kids as the infinite benefits. It seemed like a calculated answer to manipulate people emotionally in to using their product instead of using evidence.

Isn't that just form of Pascal's Wager? Hey everyone send me $1. If you do, you'll have good fortune for the rest of your life. There's no proof that I have the ability to grant this, but what have you got to lose? If I have this ability, you have good fortune for the rest of your life. If I don't have this ability, you're only out $1. You really lose nothing by sending me a $1. Hopefully a few thousand or few million of you do this. It's worth the risk.

Of course not. The longer stick will allow the player more leverage, making it easier to bend the stick. It makes sense as a standardize way to describe a property of a specific material. It's similar to how meat is sold in dollars per pound or how some things are sold by the square foot. I agree that there's probably a better way to go about things with the public, but the cynic in me thinks there's other advantages to keeping things the same or at least obscured. They can now make sticks shorter, saving themselves money in the manufacturing process, but still present the facade of the sticks still being the same. And the public generally won't notice. What they will notice is not being able to find sticks with their preferred "bendy-rating." They say the flex rating doesn't change because it's a property of the material. They say the leverage changes as the length changes, and the change in leverage makes a stick easier or harder to bend.

Why would it? It's the same materials, same stick line, same brand, same height, same flex rating. Why would one stick be different than than the other? If instead of hockey sticks, what if I was talking about lengths of bamboo? If I cut one length of bamboo to be exactly the same length as another, all things being equal other than starting length, would you be asking that question? True isn't changing the meaning of flex. The meaning has always been this. In trying to "help" people figure out what flex they should use, someone back in the day (my bet is someone in the marketing department) tried to dumb things down in a way that made flex rating and stiffness became interchangeable when they're not. Generally, this wouldn't be a problem if every stick came stock at the same height, but they don't. Hence why the example I gave can be confusing to some. Remember, according to that video, the flex rating is calculated at a distance of 1m. Stiffness takes into account the whole length of the object. Unfortunately, each stick doesn't come with a stiffness rating.

Flex rating is a property of the material the stick is made from. It's like looking at the load bearing weight of something made of bamboo or iron. Making smaller pieces of those things doesn't change that property. So doing mental gymnastics trying to do calculations about what a sticks flex rating will be after you take a couple of inches off is not a good way to think about things. It can lead to confusion. For example, if you take two Bauer Vapor sticks both 85 flex, but one comes stock at 60". and the other comes stock at 63". If you think of flex as changing, then if you take 3 inches off the second stick, depending on what rate of change you're using, it should be somewhere around 100 flex. So how is it the first stick is still an 85 flex but the second stick is now 100 flex? In reality, they're both the exact same, an 85 flex stick that's 60" tall. When one thinks of flex as immutable, things become simpler. We all generally have a preferred stick height, so we can think of that as immutable, to. So now when we look for the right stick flex for us, we simply look at what our current flex is, and choose higher or lower as desired instead of doing unnecessary calculations. But if we do want to change the length of our stick, it's simply a change in the amount of leverage we have.

I'm roughly your size. I'm 5'5 160lbs. I fell in to the rabbit hole many years ago, and after looking around and doing research, I found out the flex rating doesn't change when you cut the stick. What changes is leverage. Here's a video explaining things by a True Hockey engineer. Once you realize the flex rating doesn't change when you cut the stick, things became simpler. Once I cut out the noise, it was a lot easier zeroing in on sticks that were right for me. One thing you have to keep in mind is each company's sticks will flex/feel a bit different even if they have the same flex rating. This feel will also change with a change in kick point. Depending on your shooting style and what you're used to, for some, low kick sticks feel stiffer, to other's they feel whippier.

I'm roughly your size. 5'5 160lbs and almost the same vintage, just shy of 50. I've been a tweener most of my life. Sometimes I'm in juniors and sometimes I'm in senior. It just depends on the build and fit. For the protective, I could be wrong, I don't think there's a distinction between Int and senior. It's either a junior size or senior. For skates, I've used juniors forever and never had issues. There wasn't an Int designation for skates until recently, and IMHO, it was just an excuse for them to charge more because they knew smaller adults were getting a good deal. If you're paying attention, with sticks, we seem to be in the process of shifting what's considered junior, int and senior. I don't know senior sticks, so correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems that Int and senior sticks have the same shaft and blade dimensions. And they're making senior sticks with lower flexes like 65 and 70. And with junior sticks, a few years ago, Bauer started making their 50 flex junior sticks with intermediate shaft and blade dimensions. The other companies haven't follow suit yet. Though, CCM junior sticks have always been slightly bigger other junior sticks in terms of shaft and blade. The new Warrior Novum stick, their 50 flex stick has a intermediate blade on a junior shaft.

Liquid Hockey tape. I found this to be actually useful, but could be messy to apply, with hard to find instructions on how to use it.

From this, indications are the balance point on the top is further back than the bottom. This means the top is likely more pitched forward than the bottom. I can't say for certain, but assuming the bottom is a neutral pitch, the top may be a +1 or +2 pitch. If memory serves, a +1 pitch moves the balance point 5mm back. The top runner looks to have a smaller radius than the bottom. Doesn't seem to be a shift in balance point, so both seem to have the same pitch to them. In both cases the top and bottom runners appear to be different profiles from one another. Obviously, there's a human error aspect to this, so your mileage may very.

I don't think you can really eyeball a profile. If you have two different sets of steel you can compare the profiles by simply laying one on top of the other to see if you can perceive any difference. Another thing you can try is stand the blade straight up on a flat surface. Take two pieces of scrap paper, lay them on the flat surface, and slide one from toe towards the center the blade and the other from heel towards the center of the blade. There will be a point where the paper will start to feel resistance and stop. Compare these stop points on the different profiles. It won't tell you what profile is on each, but it will let you know if they're different from one another, and how they compare relative to one another. But at the end of the day the proof is in the pudding. You skate on them. You should be able to tell that there's a difference, and tell at least in broad strokes of what the profile did.

IMHO, this sounds like what you wrote above is what's probably going on. Generally, you want to err on the side of slightly small than slightly big. This is because you can stretch skates for more room, but you can't shrink them. Also, as skates age, the liner compresses giving the skate even more room inside, so slightly big can become simply big. And yeah, it sounds like the skates are big for you. One trick you can try before you start dropping more money is to swap out the skate's footbed with one out of an old sneaker. Make sure the sneaker footbed doesn't have that "lump", so it'll give you a bit more room around the arch. If you can't find an old sneaker footbed, just as an experiment, just take out the footbed entirely and see how that goes. It'll feel weird, but what you want to look for is to see if doing this reduces or eliminates the pain. If it does nothing for you, then it's probably new skate time. If it helps significantly, then you can look footbeds without the arch lump to put in.

Semantics matter. If your using the word flex when you mean leverage and using the two interchangeably, that causes way more issues than simply clarifying what something specifically means. In casual conversation people use the word "couple" as meaning more than one. I got a couple things from the store. That's fine. But when you use the word casually, in a context where the exact meaning matters, you cause misunderstanding. Your wife asks you how long you're going to be out, because she needs you back to watch the kids. You say you'll be back in a couple of hours and stay out for five. That matters because it's going to have consequences. All that video is doing is explaining what the flex rating is, it's exact meaning. By the industry, this how flex is defined. This what that flex number means. They're not creating an argument, because there isn't an argument. What is causing an argument is trying to insist, in a context where specifics matter, that the casual usage of a word and the exact definition can be used interchangeably without confusion. I gave clear examples of how thinking of flex as changing when you cut a stick can cause confusion, and how understanding that flex doesn't change simplifies the stick selection process. If this is something that you don't find useful, then fine. But don't tell me that explaining the facts is somehow wrong or confusing. Facts clarify. Misinformation confuses.

Sticking with the wrong way of thinking just because it's always been that way is silly. It's like saying I know the Earth goes around the Sun, but we'll just keep saying it's the other way around because it's easier for me to comprehend. You know what's really confusing if you don't know any better? Seeing two Vapor sticks, both 85flex, but one is 3 inches taller. By the old way of thinking, if I cut three inches off the longer stick, it's 100 flex compared to the shorter one that remains 85flex. Imagine buying a stick based on that way of thinking? Oh this is a 100 flex, why is it so whippy? True makes 65 senior sticks now. Imagine trying to compare a senior 65 flex at 60 inches tall to a 70 flex intermediate that's 57 inches tall. By the old way of thinking, If I cut three inches off that senior stick, it's an 80 flex. So if I normally us a 70 flex at 57 inches and want to try an 80 flex stick, I should by that senior 65 flex and simply cut, right? And gosh forbid, what if they they change the stock height of a stick line I like? If I normally cut three inches off, but now it's only one or two, does that mean the new sticks might too whippy for me? Should I go up in flex? That's the kind of crap people have to deal with when thinking that way. And I bet companies like Bauer and CCM love it, because the confusion means more errors when choosing a stick. More errors in purchases means more sales, because there's no returns once you cut and play with the stick. Knowing flex is an absolute number and simply thinking of length as leverage, means less variables to worry about, and it makes all that confusion above go away. if cut a stick my preferred height I lose leverage, so I have to choose a flex that allows me to bend the stick. Simple as that. No need to do math to get a pseudo flex rating. No need to worry about all the different lengths from all the different brands. No need to deal with the change in stock heights of sticks changing the calculated flex rating.

Don't get sucked into the marketing nonsense. Sure there are changes over time, but not every change is a step forward. A lot of times it's probably lateral, and sometimes it's even backward. It's impossible to say this skate is better than this other skate because it's not that straight forward. Because each of us is different. Each of our needs/preferences is different. So what might be the perfect skate for one person maybe the worst pair of skates ever for another. Just because it maybe stiffer does not mean it's automatically better for you. Because at the end of the day, all that matters is that the skate fits you properly, and that you're confident that it allows you to do what you want when you want. If a $50 pair of skates does that for you, then it's the perfect skate. If a $1000 pair of skates doesn't, then it's junk. Also names are just names. They're just fancy labels to call something, and it's a way the marketing can trick you into thinking something is good or better. The XYZ 10000 Pros must be better than the XYZ 1000 Pros from last year because it has a bigger number in the name right? It's like calling something the deluxe or the special version or limited edition. Just look at the MSRP price points for relative comparisons, and then, put the skate on. That'll be the final judgement on if a skate is good or not. If it fits well, and it feels good, then there you go.

Here's a video that will help you understand what flex is. The short of it is the flex rating is a property of the material that the stick is made from. That doesn't change. What changes when you cut the stick is the amount of leverage you have to flex the stick. It's like taking a chopstick and breaking it in half. The wood of the chopstick didn't change, but smaller pieces are more difficult to break with your hands because you don't have as much leverage.

For me, I just look at the over all condition of the stitching and seams, and feel how sturdy the shell is. My last pair of skates, the toe cap was beginning come loose from the rest of the boot and the shell was softening up, but I stretched the life of the skate out a couple of years. Skate was around 7 years old by the time I replaced it. Right now, my skates are around 5 years old. Other than surface abrasions, it looks like it should easily last another 2 years. They're S190s. I'm usually on the ice 3-4 times a week. Usually it's 2-3 games and/or 1-2 sessions of stick and puck.

When I'm doing a lot of edging drills, with lots of reps, I get the same rubbing. To address it, I added some felt padding. It's made from a cut up felt insole that I got from the dollar store. I use double sided velcro tape to attach it, so I can take it out and/or reposition. Before, when I was experimenting with the padding, I simply taped it onto my leg over my sock using sock tape. I ran the tape once around the ankle and then down under my foot and back up. That last part is important so the padding doesn't move upward and fall out. Another trick I'd use, when the rubbing wasn't so bad, was to put a piece of duct tape over my skin on that area. It'd protect the skin from blistering. Though if you've got some hair down there, you'll have to deal with the consequences of removing the duct tape after. Any ways, here are some pics.

I'll be 50 next year. And fortunate for me, after some lifestyle adjustments, I feel way better now than I did when I was 40. My fitness goals are just to remain healthy and active heading down the back nine. For the most part I don't care how strong I am or how good I look. Here are the things i do. First thing is I stretch. After some issues with a pinched nerve in my neck, I learned to stretch out my upper body. And then I learned to stretch everything else. I do a mix of static and dynamic stretching. Over time, I found out what muscles tended to tighten up and bother me most, and I'd stay on top of them. Since I started doing it, no more pinched nerves, carpal tunnel in my wrist nipped in the bud, back and shoulder are pain and spasm free, and hips nice and loose, so stride is better than ever. Second, I started running. Aside from the obvious cardio benefits, I found the impact of of running helps to stress my body in a positive way that hockey really can't. I think it helps with the small stabilizing muscles, so I feel more stable and solid in my day to day. I use to get knee pain, but now that's gone. Because of this I just don't get as worn down from sports anymore. Playing hockey is way easier now. I don't even count playing hockey as a workout anymore, because no matter how hard I go, I feel fine. I feel great, like I can keep going and going. I line change because it's time to change not because I'm out of breath or tired. Third, I made a shift in diet, and payed attention more to what I was eating regularly. I looked towards low calorie, but voluminous foods to help me cut weight. It wasn't an earth shattering change, but it mattered. I started using egg whites instead of whole eggs. Instead of chips, I'd eat popcorn. Instead of cookies, I'd make an open-faced sandwich. Doing that, and over the long haul, 25lbs fell away with not much effort. I still got to eat burgers, fries, ice-cream, etc. I just make sure on the average, I'm eating well. Fourth, I do light, body-weight exercises, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups. I do them not to gain strength, but just to maintain, and make sure I can still do them. To be honest, this is the most neglected/inconsistent part of my fitness routine. The first three things were easy to incorporate into my life. This one, it's a little tougher to find/make the space for it. Fifth, after reading up on a bunch of things, I recently started taking a supplement, creatine specifically. Found it really helped with my explosiveness and endurance levels. Our bodies naturally make creatine and we get it from foods like meat, but I found out as we age, the stores of it in our muscles decrease, which I believe plays a part in loosing that young man's jump.

Perhaps you're thinking about the NHL rule that states that 63" is the max allowable length of a stick from heel to butt-end. 65" is the absolute max length for players 6'6 and taller if they apply for an exemption.

Nope.

13/26, but I also use a 13 on occasion, all 1"

It, like anything else, is unique to the skater and what they like and want a achieve. From my experience weight has little to do with it. I'm 160lbs. I use a 1" hollow. If the shops in my area offered it, I'd go even shallower. I know guys who are above 200lbs and they like 3/5".