The Sweet Spot

[The Sweet Spot]

Thats incredible news @dkmiller3356!  Congratulations!

[Ellipse Profiles – The next revolution in skate profiling?]

2 hours ago, kkskate said:

That's interesting and likely why people need to try things for themselves.  I've recently skated an all 3 (Quads, Ellipse, and Zuperior) and the found the Zuperior to be much different than the Quad and Ellipse. 

And why in reality, profiling isn't really innovative for the general population.  People don't have the money, the time, or the expertise (nor is it being provided by the LHS) to actually find a profile that optimizes their performance.

[VH Footwear/TRUE by Scott Van Horne]

53 minutes ago, Healthyscratch said:

There’s really no way to justify charging a fixed price for a boot, holder and steel... and only sending someone the boot - because they don’t want the holder and steel attached. 

There is, and it's the only way that matters, they determined that overall not providing the holder is better for their business.  

[Tydan Blades to cease wholesale sales]

56 minutes ago, Miller55 said:

Gotcha. But in the case of step selling outside of the US, shouldn't that loophole keep them out of trouble with Bauer?

Patents would be contested in whatever court has jurisdiction.  Some countries have agreements so that you don’t have to file in a hundreds of countries.  I do not know all the details of those arrangements, pretty much limited to what I know from some of my experiences with patent stuff with work.

This is one of the big gripes the US has with China and some other places whose governments don’t enforce IP.  We used to have people knocking off disposable parts of medical devices.  They were so efficient they would occasionally get shut down and pop back up within weeks.

[VH Footwear/TRUE by Scott Van Horne]

They probably know their customer to the extent that they know exactly how many people request other holders vs. just going with theirs, which we don't.  Product managers make decisions like this day in and day out that will piss off some people but since they should know their business, don't have any effect on their overall success.  I am constantly getting feedback from people internal and external about what I should do with my products, many/most of them don't have the big picture.

[Tydan Blades to cease wholesale sales]

1 hour ago, Miller55 said:

I'm not super familiar with patent law. I'm actually not familiar at all. If it is a US patent, does it only apply in the US and not outside? If so, I don't see how they violated the patent. If it applies only in the US and they sold outside the states, they did nothing wrong. The only misdeed is on the folks who brought step steel into the US to sell. 

 

And if blade tech and flare are able to get around the patent by having their own IP then I don't see why step couldn't just do the same thing...?

If you come up with IP, and get a patent, that doesn't mean that patent can't be challenged if it infringes.  They can't review every single patent against infringement at the time of filing.

[Skate recommendations for a junior skater]

I would agree with Vet88 on the Ribcore.  I have them and have a similar foot as your son, maybe not as extreme, dunno.  I have skinny, bony feet.  Relatively narrow heel, regular forefoot, high instep.  They are comfortable but literally the two areas I find lacking are the heel and the instep.  Not sloppy in the heel but not locked in.  There’s definitely not a lot of wrap over the mid portion of the lacing for me either and i have to be careful not to overtighten even a bit, and i don’t generally tie my skates tight.  Bottom line on the skate for me is the padding is comfy but that also kind of makes it feel disconnected for me.  I have had them over a year and am looking for alternatives, although not pressing as I am just coaching and won’t play again until summer.

[Do you see a lot of vintage helmets and/or gear in your adult league?]

One guy wears an SK600 with cateye cage playing out but thats about it.  I used to wear an HT2 until I got something that didn’t have concrete-like padding.

[Single Favorite Piece of Equipment Ever]

Loved my Cooper SC Pro gloves from high school.  Pretty thin palms (not that my brick hands took advantage of them...), classic look, should never have gotten rid of them!

[building ankle strength]

30 minutes ago, YesLanges said:

I disagree. We're only talking about people who have normal strength levels in all of their muscles, not anybody recovering from injury or suffering from any pathology causing weak muscles. In other words, everybody we're discussing already has the "minimum level of strength needed" to skate (or ride a bike or juggle tennis balls). The fundamental disagreement in this thread is whether changes in edgework are functions of maximum muscle strength; and I'm saying that maximum muscle strength (and endurance) has nothing to do with it at all.

I disagree. Body positioning is just the necessary conscious strategy necessary to be able to stay balanced here, precisely because you hadn't yet established the mind-muscle connection in your ankles. The less stable you are, the more aware you need to be about your center of gravity and the more careful you need to be not to move in ways that throw you off balance, exactly the way people walk on tightropes or on ice in street shoes. The more you establish the mind-muscle connection, the more your brain tells all the different fiber clusters in the muscles in your ankles to fire and relax in the coordinated way that manifests itself in improved skating and the less you need to consciously control your head and limbs to avoid losing your balance.

1- Dunno what the point is, you need to apply force in a coordinated manner, my point didn’t say you need some high level of maximum strength

2- I didn’t say anything about conscious or unconscious, many things are learned consciously and then become unconscious. My point was that ankle control isn’t the sole contributor to balance in a system that has multiple pivot points.  That isn’t specific to skating.

[building ankle strength]

Lots of nuance and semantics being argued.  Let’s say it’s about controlling a system (the entire body) and that there is a minimum level of strength needed (it may not be that much and is not the sole contributor) paired with coordination of many muscles (the symptom may be unstableness at the skate but that doesn’t mean the solution is local).

When i first started doing laces undone, the improvement didn’t come from my ankles as a gross motor skill, but first from the alignment of my body above the skate, literally where my head was which then kind of cascaded to where my hips and knees were.  There was lastly though local feedback from my entire foot.

[building ankle strength]

Even something as simple as a foam kneeling pad for gardening works, they are like 1" thick and provide enough squish to be a first step from a hard surface.

[building ankle strength]

Can we have some data to back up the assertion that you can't have weak ankles, or are you talking semantics?  We don't say you have weak knees or course, but have weak muscles that control the joint.  The ankle is a joint.

One point though, there are multiple joints above the ankle transferring the weight of your body to the skate blade.  Hips, knees, overall skating posture are all factors that come into play.  Just try balancing on one foot in your socks on dry land and bend your knee, hold that for a while and you'll start to feel how many different body parts contribute to balance.

[Padded Shirt instead of Shoulder pads for low-level Beer league?]

I play with guys with a strict no bullshit policy but stuff happens.  I wear these Warrior Bentley pads i got at Dunhams for like $25.  Light but enough protection. Got a deflected shot in the chest that left a yellow bruise, would have been much worse without them.

[The "people you may have heard about but probably didn't" death thread.]

Chick Corea, listened to him first because of his bassist, the great John Pattitucci.  23 Grammys!

[2020-21 Gear Sightings]

1 hour ago, puckstopper said:

Definitely not.  But it didn't matter, since you took a blowtorch to your stick the minute you got it home anyway (or at least I did).   Stock curves were for benders!

I did a few times, but always did it too much and the fiberglass wrap delaminated.

[CCM stick fitting facility questions]

While no matter what the setup, you need enough sticks for people to try, which requires a lot of overhead cost, just an indoor shooting setup with some targets and a speed gun would get people closer to where they need to be than going in blind.

[2020-21 Gear Sightings]

I remember they pretty much put Coffey on everything.  You'd have different curves on the same rack of 5030s all marked Coffey.  I remember they also used to have a "BC" and "SC" stamped on them and I thought that meant "Big Curve" or "Small Curve".  I don't think things were as standardized back then.

[Youth team decision factors]

Maybe, depending on how big the org is I imagine it would be different, but there are orgs that have reputations as fun places to play, jackasses, etc.  Some of that can be taken with a grain of salt, some of it is probably valid.

[Youth team decision factors]

Maybe it goes in your first category of development but to me it's culture.  What does the org value overall?  Yes, development but how are kids developed, what kind of atmosphere do they encourage/mandate?  Really a very holistic view.

 

[Fun Parents!]

2 minutes ago, caveman27 said:

Weird number roster happens often in beer league games.

Not sure how it would work with kids hockey and your horn system. But like with 11 players, we would put 3 guys on a position that would rotate faster, and not necessarily with their line, like center or one of the wingers. If everyone is hustling, we usually get exhausted enough to where we want to get off sooner than later. I know with kids, if you didn't have your horn, they would play the whole game.

Yeah, I was running 3 kids in a given position but we change every 1:30 on the horn, so can't rotate faster through.  

[Fun Parents!]

Mini update.  Got on the ice for practice today (in-house, big group, many coaches) and one of the guys in charge calls me over. He had walked by during my parent discussion but didn’t have time to stop.  He asked me what happened and I told him and he said he figured and had mentioned it to the other guy who runs things.  At the end he just said he wanted me to know that they have all the coaches’ backs.  Nice to know.

[Sher-Wood .....Again]

Yeah, I have been looking for a traditional red/white/blue glove and since I really don’t need them that would be a good price.    Need a 15” though as well.

[Supreme Fit Sizing]

Maybe we should give out pool noodles to duel to resolve these existential disagreements....

[Fun Parents!]

9 minutes ago, Blissy said:

I think that's a great idea.  Often, we have egos that prevent us from seeing that sometimes suggestions are an honest attempt to help, regardless of how they come across.  

Are you the only one on the bench?  If so, I certainly understand how trying to divide up the shifts, and watch the kids so that you can coach them all by yourself means that one or the other aspect will suffer.  I've been there too!  Would it be possible to approach this parent and say something like, "I thought about your idea and liked it, but with it just being me on the bench, it's difficult to implement that and still be able to watch the kids to see what areas they need help with.  So I was wondering if you'd be willing to get your safe-sport certification, and be on the bench during games to help run the line-changes?"  

Lots of upside to this--the guy will see that it's not an easy task; he'll also feel important because you took his suggestion and are using him on the bench.  And he may decide he wants to get more certification and become a contributor to the hockey community.  Anyway, good luck going forward!

Yeah, I am the only coach for this team.  Sometimes the org that runs the program will have someone who jumps on the bench to help.  At this point in the season i am not sure there would be time.  We are required to have USA Hockey coaching cert, the age group module, State Police, Child Abuse, SafeSport, and I think one other background type thing and they definitely track it.  But it might be a good suggestion heading into next year.  Maybe I just put it in an e-mail.  Many parents may not know there is an opportunity to get involved since they don't skate/play.