BenBreeg

The digital weaving factories are pretty much centered in China and for the most part assembly lines are shared unless you are massive (Under Armour) so it's affecting everyone.

I wear cheap synthetic t-shirts on top and just Shock Doctor short bottoms, that is plenty warm even in cold rinks for me, and I don't like the cold. A buddy skates with regular cotton sweatpants under everything, I can't imagine how hot that must be... For the most part, synthetics are going to wick similarly to one another, there ARE ways to weave them that can change this but I would wonder if the higher priced stuff actually incorporates that.

Not sure how ice time is or your desire to organize, but I only skate in organized pickup. One of them is structured where you pay for 6 months, he has a call up sheet, two full lines every game, teams and lines are assigned to make it even, and there are always goalies. The other is a little looser but usually have 14-18 guys. If someone is a jerk they get uninvited. It is just as fun, the skates are fast, especially in the summer when all the young college kids come back. Something to think about, you will eventually get a group of like-minded guys to play with.

Yeah, on the ice it was the same, puck just kinds of comes off the blade really hot without much effort or concentration on my part. Definitely stayed a bit lower. Backhands are a little more challenging, both off the shooting pad and the ice. Unfortunately it didn’t improve my decision making, fitness level, or executio so, a little disappointed in that….

Picked up a JS Team P90TM yesterday. Only had a chance to shoot about 20 pucks off a pad but for me, there is a huge difference between this and a 28. I had used an 88 for years then switched to 28 last year. I like it for stickhandling and passing. For shooting, yeah, you can kind of shoot it off various places on the blade, but if I got my hands right, good bottom hand pressure, puck closer to my body, and the puck in that toe pocket, the shot was ridiculous. Unfortunately, the margin for error for me was very slim, and in real play that rarely happened. Even with the limited time yesterday I love the 90. Was able to shoot the puck from various parts of the blade with consistent results, hands didn’t need to be so far forward and on top of the puck. It just performed well so far from my natural shooting position, I didn’t feel like I had to adjust to the stick. Skate Sunday so will get on the ice early and see how it goes there.

Prices seem to be pretty much in the same ballpark across manufacturers. So...I'm looking at the consumers. This isn't like price gouging people to heat their homes where they don't have a choice. There are plenty of options. Very few people need or can wring out the marginal improvements of high-end sticks and skates. Costs have nothing to do with how things should be priced.

I have a 20 year old easton bag that doesn't look a year old. The nylon (or whatever material it is made of) is really heavy and so are the zippers. But I still wish someone made something like the old Cooper Hockey Locker with not only skate pockets on the outside but a couple accessory ones as well. I think they had one or two compartments at the end, plus another little one on the side between the skate pockets.

Warranty replacement would be built into the business model and unless something drastic was happening homogeneously across all manufacturers then it is not consistently driving prices up. Don't buy the expensive sticks, that will drive prices down if enough people do it. Otherwise there is a willingness to pay and it is making business sense for the manufacturers.

Gotcha, didn't mean to misrepresent. I actually thought you had some connection to them, shouldn't have jumped to conclusions.

That's what they say... but smoother compared to what they characterize as "harsh" transitions on regular Quads (their marketing department's words, I never heard any user describe them as such)...

We were developing a medical garment and I got some insight into digital knitting and the soft goods industry. Yes, there are only a few locations and factories in the world that have certain capabilities and they do the majority of what you wear for big customers. Same with sports equipment, design firms do a lot of the heavy lifting, not everybody has in-house capabilities. I walked the display hallway of a big firm we worked with and they had stuff the designed for Nike, UA, Kobolt Tools, and tons more.

I would imagine all stock profiles are popular (because people don’t get them profiled). I wonder what the percentages are for people who actually get their skates profiled. I would say of the guys I play with, including the random high-level one or two, hardly anybody does it. The store I get my skates at, and my sons and others, it has never been suggested we profile, I just knew I wanted it and which profile. One guy even thought it was weird I wanted my son’s done. And they are one of the two I know about that do it in town. What do you and other store owners see? What are the demographics?

This is one of those strawmen to me. Who says there are "harsh transitions" on Quads? I have been skating on Q0 for three years and don't notice the transitions. It's not like it goes from a 12' and instantly changes to a 9'. It's not scalloped. Like many transitions between different radius arcs, there is what is called an easement, that gradually changes from one radius to another or straight to curve or vice versa.

Dunno, I would have to see some data. Only the weight of one blade/holder comes into play for a portion of the stride and one on recovery, depends on how you would segment the whole process, so again, % and diminishing returns. Without data I can't really say how much it contributes to performance per ounce or however you want to measure.

Out of curiosity, are the 65 flex sr or int, I always wondered what something that whippy would be like. What do you charge to ship?