puckpilot

It can be a lot of different things, maybe even a bit of all of it. During Covid, there was still public skating but nothing else, so did a lot of skating work. But when I started to play with gear on again, a lot of the strides in technique I made didn't immediately transfer over to game situations. For me, it was being less restricted and lighter without the gear that was causing the disconnect. One of the things I did was to wear a 12lb weight belt when I was at stick and puck and public skating. This was to simulate the weight of the gear. It's not perfect, but once I started doing that, things started to translate into games more. Still work to do, but I'm seeing results.

Maybe this video will help. For me I like being be able to roll my ankle onto the outside edge to the point I can make the side of the skate touch the ice if I want as I push off. But that's my personal preference..

Check out this pic of McDavid. He doesn't do up his laces to the top and the boot doesn't wrap around the front of his ankle. IMHO, you shouldn't be cranking the laces at the top. You don't want to restrict your ankle's mobility. If you do, it'll just hinder your ability to align your edges properly. For me, I just have the laces snug, so the skate isn't far from the untied position. You'd be surprised at how little ankle support from the skate you need.

I think this is where you're going to have to experiment to find out what works for you. For reference, here's what I went through to get to where I am now. When I started to experiment with profiles, it was because I had gone down half a size in skate, and it exasperated some flaws in my skating, in terms of stability in crossovers and getting up on my toes too much when accelerating. First thing I did was work on my technique to see if I could correct the issues. I tried for 6 months and only had marginal improvements. So, I got a second set of steel, and I went from a stock 10' profile with a 3/8 hollow to 12' profile with a 5/8" hollow and a +1 pitch on the new steel. Noticeable improvement in stability on crossovers, but also noticeable loss in agility, but that wasn't a concern because I had plenty to spare. I liked what I felt, but I wanted to see what a 13' profile would feel like, so I took my old steel and got it profiled to a 13' radius with a 3/4" hollow. Felt like it was a bit too much with the 13' so I stuck with the 12' profile. Another 6 months goes by. Still having issues with getting up on my toes too much, but stability is on point. I try the 13' profile again, but after getting used to the 12' profile the 13' now feels almost exactly like the 12' profile. So time for another change. I get my 12' steel profiled to a 13' with a neutral pitch instead of the +1 to try and keep me off my toes more. Turns out this is another step in the right direction.. More time goes on. More experimenting with other parts of my skate's set up. Still having issues with getting on my toes, so I do something way out of the box, I tried a negative pitch. Again, a positive step. BUT, this time it there was a big price to pay. The negative pitch made the heel area less stable, so I had stability issues again. I did some mental math and went to the shop asking for a profile larger than 13'. They didn't have templates for anything larger in a single radius. I thought about it some more and looked at my options. I ended up doing something even more out of the box. I went back to the shop and asked for a 13'/26' duo profile (which some goalies use) with a negative pitch and a 13/16 radius. This is what I'm on now except I'm on a 1" hollow now. This is what works for me. It not only allowed me to correct the issues, it allowed me to advance beyond what I was before. And the loss of agility, I don't even notice it any more. In fact, I'm sure I gained a lot of it back by simply becoming a better skater. In all honesty, profiling isn't a quick fix. There's no magic bullet that solves things for all people, so don't expect perfect results. It's a journey comprised of a bunch of tiny incremental steps, where you need time to assess if something is working or not. Each time I made a change, it took a while before I could genuinely tell if it was helping or not. and how I wanted to proceed. Eg. A 13' profile was too much at first, and now, it's not enough. Any ways, hope some of this... whatever it is... helps.

How tight do you tie your skates? Specifically, how much ankle mobility do you have? When I hear about someone having trouble gripping the ice regardless of how sharp their skates are, I'm thinking it's an edge alignment issue, meaning you're having trouble getting your edges lined up properly against the ice over the blade's balance point. There can be lots of different reasons for this, including but not limited to laces too tight, thus restricting ankle mobility, ill fitting skates, or simply a flaw in technique. One thing I'm fairly certain it isn't is the profile. But without actually seeing you skate, this is all speculation on my part.

One thing to think about is, it's easy to carry a stock 10' profile that is known to be widely used, but for those who are keen enough to do their homework and profile their blades to their personal specs, not everyone uses the same profile. From my experience, each person has specific needs, so profiles aren't a one size fits all. Using myself as an example, that power profile isn't even close to what my personal needs are. So for me, a stock 10' profile or stock power profile might as well be the same thing. They'd both get overwritten by my personal preferred profile. So Bauer would have went through all that extra effort for nothing. But like I said, that's just me. And in general, I don't think there are enough people who really care about what profile they're using to make things worth while. From what I've seen, most people just want consistency. They want what worked for them before. I wonder how many people try out the power profile and then go back to the stock 10' or just let the profile fade because they don't want to drop the extra money to maintain it?

I'm cynical, too. IMHO, it's in the best interest of manufacturers to keep things opaque and maybe even a little confusing. If the public in general doesn't understand how to make a reasonable oranges to oranges comparison between two sticks it can be good for the bottom line. How many of us have bought a stick, and it just didn't work for us? That stick either ends up gathering dust in a corner, or we treat it like crap in the hopes it breaks soon, so we have an excuse to get a new stick. For interest's sake. A while back I found this video of a flex tester made by a engineering student. Honestly, as someone who is extremely picky about how a stick flexes, I wouldn't mind owning one.

If you're discussing where the best starting point for a beginner in terms of profile is, I'd tend to agree that a flatter profile would probably be a better starting point.It But in terms of expecting profiling to fix issues, or if its a good idea to go to something like a quad right off the bat, that I don't think is a good idea at all. IMHO, regardless of profile, it's better for a beginner try to try to fix their technique first before looking for help in profiling. Because everyone is different with different needs, so it's better to figure out what your own personal needs are before getting into profiling. Just jumping at what ever is generically recommended may or may not work just as a stock profile on a skate may or may not work. It's just a starting point. A person may start with a 13' profile and find that a 10' profile works best for them, or the reverse may be true. A person who starts with a 10' may find that a 13' works best for them. And the best way, IMHO, to start figuring that out is to work on yourself first, and after a while, if it's not working, then look towards profiling to give you a boost.

Since you're not to far along in your skating, it's probably better to try and see if you can figure it out without profiling first before you start dropping money on profiles. 8 months is not that long to be skating. For what it's worth, I have issues with getting up on my toes too much. For me, it's a combination of bad habits and small feet. I'm a size 4.5 and I'm a full grown adult. It took me like 2 years of gradual tweaks to find my way to my current profile, a 13/26 with a -1 pitch. Very few people use negative pitches. During practise I generally don't have issues. I can use a standard profile and be fine doing things, but during the course of a game, at game speed and when I get tired, the 40+ years of bad habits rear their ugly head, and I can end up on my toes too much. The negative pitch helps settle me down, so I can get a full proper stride instead of choppy ones. Again, in this instance, it's probably better to work on yourself a bit more before you jump into the deep end. And IMHO, it's probably better to do a bunch of incremental changes rather than jump head long into something like a quad profile. The quad changes a bunch of variables at once, and if it doesn't work, it's tougher to figure out what your next move is, but if you only change one thing, it's easier to diagnose if its a positive change or not. Yes it can end up being expensive, but it's a sure and steady path narrowing in on what's right for you rather than one where you're taking a bunch random shots in the dark hopping to hit a bullseye.

A profile will help you to get to where you want to be, but it's not magic. In general, it's not going to fix anything. It's just a tool to help you get better. It just makes it easier to do somethings while making it harder to do others. It all about give and take and finding the right give and take for you as an individual. One way to think about it is like car tires. Snow tires will help a person drive in the snow, but they won't save the person from a ditch if they're a reckless/terrible driver. BUT to get that grip in snow, you have to sacrifice durability and performance while driving on dry roads. IMHO, if you're going to diagnose an issue, first you need to know what the proper technique for of doing something is. Youtube is a great resource. Second, take video of yourself skating and compare yourself in the video to what the proper technique is. Three, identify, the flaws in your technique and practice to correct those flaws. While practising take note of what things are giving you trouble. After a period of time, if you don't see any improvement, figure out an adjustment to your blades that you think will help nudge you in the right direction. Then rinse and repeat. This is what I did. I experimented a lot. To get to the profile I'm using now, I practised to get better, and I made maybe a dozen incremental changes to my set up that got me closer and closer to what I needed. All the while, I was practising to address my flaws by improving myself. But always, it took time to evaluate and assess the profile and myself. Here's a link about profiling that I found very useful. It goes over profiling, the various profiles available, and what they do. https://issuu.com/elinmalmsten/docs/script-tryckfilus

There are people who like stiff sticks. I'm on the opposite end of that spectrum. I use extremely whippy sticks. I'm 5'5 175lbs. I use a 50 flex. At this extreme, the construction of the stick affects how much the CONS come into play. With lines like the Supreme and Tacks, they have reinforced hosles, which makes catching hard passes and taking faces offs a lot easier, because there's less give to the bottom of the stick. Opposite of that are lowkick sticks like the Ribcor or QRE. I find you need softer hands when catching passes, and depending on the other center, it can be tougher winning face offs. Yes, there can be a wet noodle feel to it at first, but I've gotten use to the feel--which did take time and patience--so for me, the only real consistent CON, I find is with face offs. A good face off man will just power through my stick, which is why I bring stiffer sticks to games for the tougher match ups, or else I really have to out think them. But if I'm going against a weaker face off man, the CON doesn't usually come into play. Other than that, I've found that for just pure shot release, velocity, and accuracy, these all improved significantly the instant I went to a whippy stick for all my shots. Just before the world ended, Martin Frk took the hardest shot ever recorded in pro hockey using a 70 flex stick in the AHL all-star game. So it doesn't appear that a lower flex will limit shot power if one's mechanics are sound.

https://m.imgur.com/RfkCu8a?r Putin uses something similar to this. Scores 8 goals a game and is a ruler of a country. Is best thing since scooped borscht I assume. Not saying otherwise else end up in gulag.

I'm specifically responding to the OP's concern that cutting down a 70 flex senior 3 inches to make it the same length as their current intermediate stick will make it way to stiff for them to use. They expressed that cutting a 75 flex down would make it nearly 100 flex. I'm pointing out.If they cut a 70 flex senor stick down to the same height as their current stick, which is a 67flex, it'll only be 3 flex higher. This allows them to compare apples to apples with their old stick and easily determine what the difference will be instead of doing the mental gymnastics of adding flex and confusing themselves into believing something that isn't true. So in this instance, I don't think the "net" or "actual" or what ever you want to call it is relevant.

FYI. Flex doesn't change when you cut the stick, just the leverage. Here's a video of a True Hockey engineer explaining things.

I've been skating most of my life. For a long time, I'd plateaued in my skating. But then I started dropping eyelets during practice just to see. Skip ahead in time and now I'm practising with my laces undone, and what a huge difference it has made. Yes, at first, I felt a bit slower, but then as I got used to it and my edges got stronger, it felt like I was getting into a better posture and getting better extension. Generally, I'm feeling the ice better, and that's allowing me to get better. When the world isn't ending, I'm playing games with looser laces. The laces on the top three eyelets are, for the most part, only there to keep the boot from spreading open. Otherwise, they don't provide much/any support for me. For me, it was short time pain by sacrificing that ankle support, but it's been long time gain, because once I got used to it, I'm a better skater for it.

I know what I want. I know why I wanted it. If I have to, I can make due with what's handed to me, specifically with skates and sticks.. BUT there's nothing wrong with being picky. IMHO, not enough people pay attention to what they're getting, and sometimes that can be detrimental in a lot of different ways. First, the customer isn't getting what they want, a competent sharpening, and second, there's no incentive to get it right if no one complains. Luckily, I live in a city where there's lots of options. I used to drive across the city to get my skates sharpened because the places I went to became a crap shoot of competent and incompetent workers. One of the things I did was get multiple sets of steel, so I could cut down on the number of trips I needed to make, saving time and gas. It also let me experiment with specs and compare.

Don't discount the value of comfort and the mental aspect of things. For example, if someone believes that wearing their red shirt to every game is the reason they're on a point streak, then it's the reason they're on the point streak. It doesn't matter that it's superstitious mumbojumbo. What matters is that wearing the shirt puts them in a comfort zone where they're confident and believe. If you're not comfortable in your equipment, and aren't confident that that equipment will allow you to do what you want to do when you want to do it, it can have just as much a negative impact on ones performance as having sub-optimal equipment, maybe more. Just a thought.

Not a scientific option, but take it for what it's worth. Last time I got new skates, I dropped down a half a size, which dropped me down to a smaller runner. On of the things I noticed was I was a little less stable. At first, I thought was just new skate adjustment. I thought if I just did some edge work etc my feel for the skates would improve and that instability would go away. After about 6 months of working, things didn't improve much. In fact, it exasperated some of the flaws in my skating, one of which was getting on to my toes too much. I find it incredibly easy to get onto my toes, too easy. I think part of it is because I'm a 175 guy with size 4.5 feet. That's when I started to look into profiling and in my research, I came upon some things that might explain what was happening. From what I read, the middle part of the runner is pretty much the same on all size runners if they all have the same profile, but for obvious reason, with smaller runners, the transition curving up towards the toe is a more aggressive/steeper transition. So, with the smaller runner, when I shift weight and rock forward or backward, there's a steeper drop, so to speak, which makes things a bit more wobbly. To address this I went to a larger profile. I settled on a 13' profile for a while, and now, I'm on a 13/26' profile with a negative pitch. For many, that's incredibly flat, but I find these work great.for me. So going back to what some of the pros and cons are, from my experience, the smaller runner will make it easier to shift your weight onto your toes,with the opposite happening with the larger runner. Going to a larger runner, may allow you to go to a smaller profile and retain the same relative stability. Any ways, that's my experience.

Skate eyelet lock.

If you like them that much, you can take them off an old pair of skates and put them into any other pair using a bolt and flat nut. I took them off my Rbks and put them on my current skates. I also have a bunch of them I bought off eBay.

Don't NHL players wear custom made skates? So, who knows what customization options companies like CCM and Bauer offer the pros that aren't available to the regular public. Maybe they have just as much to offer as True, maybe more.

If you're creating a permanent practice area, you might want to think about buying tiles. For around $120, you can get like 20 tiles to create a 4ftX5ft adjustable shape shooting area. Over time, you can invest in more tiles to create a larger area.

If you have access to ice, the one drill that I love doing is slow, simple step overs. I loosen the laces at the top of my skate and basically walk sideways. As I shift my weight to one side out of an A-stance, I role my ankle over transferring from inside edge to outside. As I step over, all my weight is on my outside edge, and I try to maintain as much control as possible and not rush things. I start with small steps then work my way up into larger steps, creating more separation between skates. The larger separation makes it harder, and as I get more comfortable, I loosen the laces a bit more. When you're doing this, you have to maintain good posture, with good knee and ankle bend, with your feet always facing forward, and you have to be well balanced on your edge otherwise it falls apart, so I find it's a good check to see if something is off. I find this give me a really good edge and posture workout.

Try this lacing method. I find it helps push the heel back into the heel pocket and keep it there. You don't even have to get on the ice to see if it works. If it works, you should feel your foot being pushed back into the skate. You might be able to combine it with some of the other suggestions like adding foam to increase effectiveness.

Yeah, a broken hotdog is exactly how it looked. They were able to sew it back together, but there’s s possibly permanent crease in my flesh now. *socially distanced, jacked up finger fist bump* 😛