CigarScott

So my skates finally showed up Monday. I went to the rink pro shop to bake them and without any tweaking the skates weren't real pleasant to me overall. The bottom of my feet felt great as I finally have a skate that accommodate my flat feet but the heel was too tight, my toes were digging into the cap of the skates, my bunions and side of my big toes were digging into the sides of the toe cap, even after notating issues with them on photos when I got scanned and the top of the skates were digging on the top of my feet down by the toes. After I emailing with True and skating on them in a stick & puck last night, I removed the red foot bed to add more volume, had my better half and her smaller hands remove the pads in the toe box, adjusted the tongue, did the tissue method on my bunions, big toes, and the top of the toes then rebaked them last night at home. I have hockey tonight and will know more as how much this helps. Even with the pain and discomfort last night, I noticed a huge improvement in forward flex, speed, and turn radius. I don't know if this is more due to the Step Steel being a huge improvement over the stock steel in the Nexus N7000, the boot design, or a combination of the two but I think, assuming I can get the pain and discomfort issues worked out, that it was a good purchase for me.

@IPv6Freely may also be correct with with the idea that the True boots may help with body alignment. I have trouble doing hockey stops on my right side in my current skates due to the pronation issues that I have in my right foot. I'm hoping that the new skates keep my foot and ankle in better alignment so I can use my right outside edge better. Could be a combination of better steel/edges and better foot alignment as to why you don't need as sharp of an edge on True skates?

Might also be due to upgrading from stock Bauer/CCM steel to Step. My True's show up Monday so I will know for sure next week. 🙂

I believe 10 minutes per skate at 180 will be fine from what I've read and watched. I think your skates will have to sit 12-24 hours after rebaking so are you doing it after you hit the ice tonight?

Ah, makes sense. I would figure they could bring them in as "Warrior by Graf" or something like that to keep the name but let people know that they were Graf skates or at the very least buy the equipment so they could make their own unique skates.

You never know. If some private equity firm or hedge fund made True an offer that they couldn't refuse, I'm sure they'd listen. I was surprised that Warrior didn't pursue Graf; Warrior has New Balance backing so I'm sure they would have had no problem affording it. I just find it ironic that the hockey brand owned by a shoe company doesn't make shoes/boots for their own sport. 🙂

I've been in the lacrosse world for 25+ years as a player and fan and remember when Brine and STX were the only two companies everyone knew about; the sport's Bauer & CCM. Yes, STX is a big name in the sport and until Brine was bought by Warrior, was probably the biggest or not far behind being the biggest. Now with Warrior owning Brine, they're probably a distant #2. STX was innovative in introducing plastic heads and aluminum shafts so they have a good track record of innovation but others came along, like Warrior that had really good marketing in the sport and did their own innovation, introducing titanium shafts to lacrosse, and leapfrogged them, it seems. Paul Rabil's podcast with Dave Morrow was quite interesting if you want to hear more about Warrior's history. Yes, lacrosse is leapfrogging hockey but that is due to people not having to know how to ice skate or be in proximity to an ice rink and I think US Lacrosse has done a great job of expanding the sport so it's not only prep school kids in New England playing anymore. Any school or public park that can accommodate soccer or football can accommodate lacrosse. I think a lot of these companies that are big in other sports are seeing that it's harder to break into hockey than they thought. STX is a small niche player in the market and outside of Hockey Monkey's HQ, I have never seen a hockey shop stock any of their gear for me to actually put my hands on. Until STX gets into the helmet and skate game, they will only be a small, niche player. Until Warrior gets in the skate game, they'll be a distant #3 to Bauer & CCM. True has been big in golf forever and I guess decided to branch out after seeing what is going on with golf and participation rates dropping, etc. True took the plunge into skates by buying VH but until they get helmets, offer uniforms, and all the other stuff and can increase their dealer network, they'll be a niche player. True is headquartered in Memphis and the closest dealer that I'm aware of is in St. Louis. I, along with probably everyone on here, want to see more players in the market and hope that STX, Warrior, True, etc. can all carve out a piece of the pie but I'm not sure going DTC will work long term if they have no presence in LHS where employees are demonstrating their gear to players, parents, etc; they may go the way of Tackla. We'll see...

https://www.hockeymonkey.com/accessories/accessories-skate/components/step-steel-hockey-runner-stmako-cxn-1-pair.html

That's a good question. I didn't get the shot blockers in mine and they didn't ask for what stiffness level that you want. They did ask for my weight so perhaps they adjust the stiffness to your weight, ex: someone weighing 275 lbs gets a much stiffer skate than someone that weighs 175 lbs?

I just got word that my skates showed up in Dallas today so based on me ordering them on Saturday, July 14, they're right at four weeks, when you factor in shipping from Winnipeg to Texas.

I looked at their site and they seemed to have the most options by far out of all of the custom stick manufacturers and I may give them a try sometime, if they ever have a sale. The only thing holding me back is the sticker shock. I've never spent more than $100 for a stick in my life so spending $230 plus whatever it costs to ship a stick to the Southern US from Canada is a bit rich for me as I'm not 100% sure as to what I want in regards to length, lie, flex, and blade pattern. Once I know for a fact that I want x length, y lie, z flex, and which specific pattern I want, I may take the plunge. Thanks for the information. 🙂

Here are the sticks that I've been using. I've been primarilly using the Warrior stick lately due to it's low flex. They all have 6-7 lie and are 64-66". I forgot to mention that I also have really wide shoulders so I hold my sticks farther apart than a lot of people so that's why I like the added length as well as playing defense and goalie in lacrosse so I'm used to longer sticks.

Yes, True. I don't have them yet as I just put the order in on July 14 and True stated to me the other day that turn around right now is four weeks. I hope they show up there sometime next week and they install my holders on them and have them in my hands in the next two weeks.

Cool, that's where I got my feet scanned. He was good and super helpful. If he wasn't college or high school age then that's who did it; everyone else that I saw working there was rather young.

Did you go see Chase at Pure Hockey?

I've been toying with the idea of getting a very low-lie stick after trying out ones that were 5.5-7 lies and having too much heel on the ice and missing passes since they go under my my blade if they're towards the toe. I'm 6'5" but have rather short legs and really long, neanderthal arms so I've been looking at going for a sub-5 lie twig so my right arm isn't bunched up and that I can hold my stick under my gut. 🙂 I was looking at something like this: https://www.prostockhockey.com/hockey-sticks/player-sticks/left-scott-harrington-alpha-qx-95-flex-stick/ I came across these sites and it looks like good info to me but what do I know? I still got the "the stick should go to your nose without skates on" from LHS. http://www.cuthockeysticks.com/ http://www.goldyshockey.com/general-info-tips/hockey-stick-length-lie/

For those wondering if you have really tiny or large feet and being stuck with Step holders that are too big or small, here is the response that I got from True: The size for our TRUE holders are from size 238 to 306. If a customer requires a holder larger or smaller then our range, we will mount Edge holders.

I got my boot-only order submitted just in the nick of time. I will let you all know how they are once I get my hands on them.

Yeah, I think that was one of the big attractions to True for a lot of people was this feature. Now if you're compelled to spend the full price on these and get holders and runners that you don't want then I think more people will just spring for the Bauer or CCM customs as they're better known brands and have a far bigger dealer network. We'll see if True regrets caving to Step and not looking at replacing them with Tydan or another third party blade maker... I wonder since Bauer makes inline skates that they'll be offering custom skates with wheels on them?

I tried those but I couldn't get the straps around my fat arms.

I just talked to my contact at Pure Hockey and he said that he was told that Step pressured True to stop accepting "boot only" orders and threatened to stop supplying True if they didn't.

I updated the original post with my findings after trying one of these. A size 60 is way too small, even to wear as street wear. a size 60 jersey is about a 2XL which won't cut it for me. 😞

I just called the Pure Hockey that I got scanned at in Texas and they confirmed it for me. 😞 Now I have to order them a week before I was ready to.

Texas Stars are doing theirs this Saturday in the Austin area.

Is there pics of the codes on the sticks available? This post should help you once you get that info: http://www.sports2k.com/forum/index.php?/topic/15186-pro-stock-stick-codes-what-do-you-have/