CigarScott

I had these same concerns which is one of the reasons that I didn't go with CCM; I was too afraid of picking the "wrong" thing and being stuck with $1000+ skates that weren't right for me. I had to deal with a similar issue a couple years ago when I finally bought a new drum set: I went total custom due getting the deal of the decade on it but the myriad of choices was completely overwhelming with not only paint job but wood types, the amounts, hardware, etc. It took me at least six months to come up with a configuration that I was happy with before I pulled the trigger. So far, I've been extremely happy with my kit but it was really stressful trying to decide what I wanted and being concerned that I'd regret some option that I selected. Like custom skates, custom instruments are hard to resell if you end up having to unload them for whatever reason. This is a pretty good read on why having too many choices can be a bad thing for consumers (and retailers and manufacturers): https://fee.org/articles/costco-serves-its-customers-by-limiting-their-choices/

If you continue having arch pain after a few skates, you can try this which helped with my arch pain in my True's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCsrDNuSis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJkcakEc_Sk

https://www.prostockhockey.com/pants/?&search_query=pants&filter=Size_fq:"M"&filter=Length_Adjustment_fq:"%2B1"&sort=price asc&rows=20&start=0

With all of the high quality skates on the retail market, I'm not sure why anyone who can comfortably fit in a retail boot wouldn't just save the money, time, & trouble and go that route. If you have foot problems, ankle problems, size issues, etc. then I fully understand a regular beer leaguer (or really low beer leaguer, in my case) going custom.

I'm not complaining about True or their customer service; they go way above and beyond than any hockey equipment manufacturer that I've ever dealt with. I came to their defense regarding this. I ordered my first pair in July, got them remade in September, sent them back for adjustments in October and they're paying to ship them back next month for them to move one of my holders medially. I doubt anyone else would do that after all these months.

I agree that the shop should be doing this for the customer but sometimes this is not practical. I, along with a lot of people, who live in hockey deserts have to travel far to get fitted for True (or other companies) custom skates. The closet fitter to me is about a seven hour drive and I ended up getting mine fitted at a shop that is about a 10 hour drive from me. A lot of people plan on getting fitted when on work trips or vacations to hockey areas so I, along with a lot of people can't just drive down the street to where they got fitted to show the issues to shop and have them work on their behalf. In my case, I would just email them info and pics and they just forward them up to Winnipeg since they can't add any additional info as they can't see me with the skates on in person. For myself, it's a lot easier for me just to email Rob than email the shop or True's customer service, who do give short, sometimes unhelpful responses.

All of my protective is either Jofa or Reebok or CCM derivatives. My shins are Reebok 20K which are about the only shins that I found that my knees fit comfortable in them. My Jofa/Reebok shoulders are one of the two types of XXL shoulder pads that I've found and they're built like a tank. My Jofa ASD7000 elbows look ancient but are built like a tank, as well. I also have a pair of CCM Tacks 7092 and other than some improved materials, look and feel like the Jofa and Jofa/Reebok elbow pads that everyone covets.

I agree, you can only improve some things so much. I'm rocking Tackla Air 9000 pants which look like at 20-30 year old design I can't see myself using anything else.

I've heard the same thing from the guy that owns my regional LHS regarding Bauer being in bad shape and planning on shaving down their offerings even more. If this is true that Bauer cut down their R&D departments, that could be a boon if CCM cherry picks them or if Warrior ever decides to get into the skate biz.

I'm in a different situation than most. Outside of 15" gloves, Tackla pants, and XL CCM elbow pads, everything I use has to be pro stock or custom. Nobody currently makes retail sticks, skates, shins (I can use Bauer S190 if I'm desperate), shoulder pads, or helmets so I'm constantly on the lookout for gear that I know will fit me as well as learning about stuff that may fit me that I had no idea existed. I have countless alerts set up on Sideline Swap and Ebay for these very reasons. I keep backup sets of everything, except skates because of me knowing that a lot of this stuff is hard to find and I can't walk into a LHS or go on one of the online retailer sites and get replacements for a lot of what I use, and me working in IT for a living, I'm big on redundancy. 🙂 But I try to not be a gear whore and I don't need 20 different gloves, sticks, or helmets.

I could be wrong but it looks like the 965 is listed on their website only for custom orders (custom team/league pucks, bulk orders, etc.) and Slovak ones are the ones sold to the general public. It wouldn't hurt to call or email them to see how you can get your hands on some of the Canadian-made pucks.

That went bye bye last July. I was able to get one of the last boot-only orders that they did. The people that I know that have their holder and steel do seem to love it once they get used to the height.

You should be fine. Non-gear nerds who don't have problems aren't spending their time on sites like this chatting about their ice skates...

Trues are now shipping with the wider, unwaxed laces. I tried them and really liked them. I got some longer Elite Pro-X7 laces and love them. Much more comfortable and easier to lace up than wax laces.

I do the same thing with using a shoe horn to take them on and off. I get some weird looks at first when I'm in a locker room with guys I don't normally play with then I tell them why and they get excited want to ask questions since the vast majority of players at my rink in Alabama have never seen a pair in person; I only know of one other guy at my rink that has a pair and they're the old school VH ones with yellow trim and the old logo. I got sick of having to use a silicone sleeve on my big toes for wearing a custom skate so I ended up cutting up some heel lock pads in mounting them in the toe box and on the foot bed where the insoles don't cover. I have the situation where my forefoot is so wide and in conjunction with my holders moved medially due to pronation, that there is nothing between my big toes and the first rivet or two in the front of each skate. This has greatly helped with comfort but it'd be nice to be able to get a bulk sheet of the insole material and be able to cut insoles to the exact size. Anyone have any idea where I can score the insole material to make my own?

They'll ship you some more no charge if you contact customer service.

It's a retail term, not specific to hockey equipment. Keystoning is when the markup from wholesale is 100% or doubling so if a product wholesales to the retailer for $100 then the retailer would charge $200. If that same item is keystoned by the manufacturer then their production costs would be $50 for said item. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/keystone-pricing-in-retail-2890192

You would obviously know more than the average beer leaguer when it comes to wholesale costs and being able to make an educated guess as to what it costs true to produce a pair of skates. In the case of my skates, I have no idea how True could have even broke even on my order. I would assume that you know what the exact wholesale costs are for their skates, but I’m sure True wouldn’t want that made public. I’m going to do some rudimentary math to see what their potential costs were for my order. In my case, I paid $839 US (plus tax) on my boot-only order. From my understanding from what I’ve gathered from people I’ve know who’ve worked at an LHS, most products are keystone so even if I round up and say that they wholesale for $450, I would assume that True would keystone to the retailer and their production costs is $225. Under this assumption, before shipping and what not, True would break even when they build a customer a second pair but when you factor in all the shipping costs for the old pair to be return, the new ones being sent and then sent back and returned, along with footbed requests, unless they’ve figured out how to make a pair skates for like $20, they’ve had to have taken a bath. Sent initial pair via FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20 Pair returned to via FedEx International 2 day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50 Replacement pair sent FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20 Additional footbeds sent via FedEx Ground – Manitoba to Alabama - $15 Replacement pair sent back to True for modifications via FedEx Int. 2 Day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50 Skates returned after their tweaking via FedEx Int. 2 day – Manitoba to Alabama - $50 So based on my conservative estimates, True spent over $200 on just shipping costs for my order. It may make sense for True to farm out some of their customer service functions for the US market to their parent company’s HQ in Memphis or somewhere else that they have facilities. It would save them tons of time and money by not having to paying international shipping and dealing with customs for things like customers requesting additional footbeds or replacement tongues, etc. It may make sense for them to freight their retail orders once a week or in some other scheduled interval to Memphis and then shipping them out of there since, depending on their volume, should save money by eliminating a lot of international shipping. But these decisions are for people that are way smarter than me. I fully understand that they’re getting commercial rates which are far better than if I went to FedEx and paid for the same service but if I was True’s accountant or their parent company’s accountant, I’d have a stroke every time I received the monthly bill from FedEx. I think a lot of the problems that True are having know is the growing pains of expanding from beyond specialty hockey shops with knowledgeable, experienced employees who’ve been fitting skates for years and into the “big box” hockey shops where the employee knowledge can be hit or miss. I think it is great that there is the demand and enough retailers who want to carry the product which makes it more available to the general public as a year ago, I would have had to have traveled to north of the Mason-Dixon Line to get fitted but now that they’re expanding beyond the West Side Skates of the world so they’re going to run into inexperienced fitters or less-than-ideal scanning environments. Another issue that I don’t think anyone has mentioned is that with the expanding availability of and I assume increase in order volume, that they’ve had to have hired additional people to build the skates and that their inexperience perhaps is also causing issues. I would assume that their long-time employees would be exclusively working on their NHL and other pro orders, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit that the pairs that I’ve gotten from them along with others on here were made by newer, less-experienced employees. It seems like no one that hasn’t work for True really has any idea how incoming orders are reviewed, how QC checks are made, and so on so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many sets of eyes are reviewing scan info, notes, etc. and comparing them to the finished product. From what I’ve gathered on here and other hockey nerd forums is that they’re having issues with about one in twenty orders so if they keep their problem orders to less than 5% then they should be able to weather the baths that they have to take to make things right for me and the others with less-than-ideal results.

I had my feet measured in their blue Brannock when I got scanned andy first pair was too short. My second pair was better but still had issues with my big toes in both skates. It seems that True has a one toe cap fits all regardless of your footsize or shape which is why I'm intrigued by CCM offering multiple toe cap options, which I wasn't made aware of when I got scanned for CCM's.

I've already verified with Rob that you can heat the toe box with a heat gun and punch it out.

@strosedefence34 I've gone way further than that and do the tissue technique and crank it to 11 every time I bake my skates. I first take several paper towels and fold them down to stuff between my big toes so the big toes can't be pushed in away from the boot. Then I fold up several more paper towels and tape them from my bunions to the top of my big toes. In all, after the paper towels being compressed between my foot and boot, there has to be at least 3-4mm worth of materials. I've heard of guys at my rink cut up old cloth washcloths and towels to tape to their hot spots prior to baking instead of paper towels and toilet paper so perhaps I'll try that if I have to bake them yet again.

I haven't tried the butt of a screwdriver yet but that may be my next step if the LHS in Atlanta can't fix it when I go there next week. I've been wearing those silicone toe sleeves but am trying to not have to any longer. I figured that I shouldn't have to any long after dropping a grand on customs skates. The LHS notated in my scans those areas and after my first set of boots were way off, I sent pics of my feet directly to True after wearing the skates just during baking that how red and irritated those spots were. I sent back the first pair with tape on them to mark the spots so that they could see were they needed to give me more room in the second pair. When I shipped back this pair to have them adjust them, I marked the areas up again and my bunions seemed to have been adjust enough where I don't have to wear bunion sleeves anymore, I still need toe sleeves, especially on my right toe which is on my pronating foot. I'm going to the only "real" LHS that I'm aware of in the South next Thursday to see if they can do a better job punching the spots out better than I could. I tried punching with a borrowed boot punch and my Harbor Freight heat gun and would alleviate the pain in the area but it would push in another area and create a new hot spot so I finally gave up and shipped them back to True. I don't want to use a Dremel and I'm at this point just thinking out loud as it being a last resort. The toe box horizontally and vertically is tight as it is so there is no way to fit Powerfeet in them. My better half has a pair in her skates and loves them, though.

I shipped my skates back to Winnipeg for adjustments the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (US version) and True had them back to me the following Monday; awesome turnaround time. The bunion issue seems to have been fixed but I'm still having some discomfort (not nearly as bad as before) in the toe box of each skate in the corner of each big toe. To me, True wants there to be zero negative space in your skates so they seem to be overly cautious and conservative in treating volume issues. If you need an area expanded by 2mm, they seem to only want to expand it by 1mm, for example. The past few weeks, I would at times have pain in my arches. I did the insole technique but also added a red insole to give me more padding as I weigh a lot and need it. I cut out the arches on the bottom red insole in each skate, then put in a new red insole and then the blue one. That seems to have alleviated the pressure on my arches. I'm tempted to Dremel out some excess material around the big toe in each skate; anyone else ever done this? I saw that Blademaster actually sold a tool to do such a thing so perhaps my idea isn't so crazy?

Apparently these are the equivalents to the Drury curve with other brands: You can get them made by Base to whatever specs you want and I see a fair amount of Warrior W05 curves around. BASE SR Curves Lie Options Bauer Easton CCM SherWood TRUE Warrior BH23 4, 4.75, 5.5, 6(LH) P91A - Staal E6 - Drury P15 - Jones PP20 HCR W05 - Granlund