CigarScott

I got my replacement pair on Tuesday, baked them while doing the "tissue technique" and skated on them for the first time last night. It looks like they moved my holders towards my inside edges a few mm to help with my pronation. My left foot seems fine and I think will be good once I remove the toe cap padding since the end of my big toe is digging a bit into the toe cap. My right foot I'm still having issues with my bunion and big toe with lack of volume after notating these problems to True and sending pics, etc. Does anyone know if the toe cap material can be punched out to give me more room in the area? Here is my right foot after an hour of taking it easy during a learn to play class even with wearing my bunion sleeve and gel toe cap thing: https://imgur.com/a/C6EIRSc I don't want to have to bother True again and I think my right skate can be fixed to work for me but I need to figure out a way to get more room in that area. My Speed Plate 2's showed up yesterday so I plan to rebake them tonight or tomorrow with the Speed Plates. Anyone have any other tips for my rebake?

@WildBillKickoff If you need some big shoulder pads, the guy that I bought mine from just listed another pair of XXL Reebok/Jofa pro stocks which are becoming harder and harder to find: https://www.ebay.com/itm/153203951417?ul_noapp=true

https://theathletic.com/543233/2018/10/01/introducing-coverage-for-all-31-nhl-teams-the-athletic-is-set-to-go-bigger-on-hockey-than-ever/

It didn't happen for me but I heard that it happened to a customer at the same Pure Hockey that I was scanned at a couple months later. Perhaps there was a software update that messed up the submission process? When I was scanned in June, there was no email confirmation or order tracking available to me at the time.

What's the pros and cons of both?

You can get multiple liners with True? I don't recall that being offered when I got fitted.

When did they start allowing customers to track their order via email? I got fitted in June and ordered in July but I had to email Maisy at the factory to find out what the status of them were.

I added a new section covering jocks, garters, and base layer stuff.

If you need a hockey jock w/ velcro garter, you'll be hard-pressed to find another one in 3xl... https://sidelineswap.com/gear/hockey/other-hockey/315220-under-armor-purestrike-comp-hockey-jock-short-w-cup-sr-various-sizes

Nice, glad those went to a good home. I will say that I personally like the fit of the Tackla Air 9000 better since my pair is for a 48-50" waist and they're built like a tank next to the Bauer but for the cost, you weren't going to get anything close to this nice in your size but who knows, you may absolutely love them and prefer them if you have the opportunity to try a pair of size 58 Tackla; the Nexus line of pants is quite popular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5y9ejpldGU You can always hit up Montreal Hockey later in the year to see if they imported any size 58's if you want to try them or wait until Tackla in Europe has a sale where it won't be as painful to order a pair from them. Let me know if you need help finding anything else; chances are I've bought from the people that have these caches of oddball-sized gear.

Save the money and pick these up on closeout to try first: https://www.tsrhockey.com/bauer-nexus-600-sr-hockey-pants.html I have the newer version as a backup pair and they'll fit a 44-48" waist...

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The latest issue of the US Hockey magazine has a pretty good article about trying to encourage more youth house leagues and the issues that travel hockey has: http://touchpointmedia.uberflip.com/i/1018556-september-2018/22

CCM has been in skate-making business for over a century and Bauer for over 90 years so I expect them to be flawless whereas before November 2016, VH was a tiny, niche company where the owner was making skates in his basement 3-4 years ago, so I knew and accepted that they wouldn’t be as refined as the Big Two. Hell, True Hockey skates could look like crappy, high school shop class projects for all I care if they are comfortable, stiff enough for my weight, and help with my pronation. There are pros and cons to all three options. Bauer and CCM are well-known brands that virtually everyone that plays or has played hockey has heard of and trusts. True is a small company when compared to them and are better known for their golf club shafts that a lot of the general hockey public, especially non-gear nerds have never heard of. Bauer and CCM has far more fit centers where you can order customs. There is a Bauer and CCM fit center about 2.5 hours from where I live in Birmingham; True doesn’t have one within 500 miles of where I live. I realize that I live in a bit of a hockey desert but there is nowhere, that I’m aware of in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana where you can be fitted for True skates so unless you can get outside of this large geographic footprint to get fitted, they’re not available to a good chunk of the US and I’m sure there are a lot of other gaps in the US where hockey players can’t get fitted for them. The pros of True is that they’re a lot cheaper than Bauer and CCM: Bauer by $150 and CCM by $200. I would have considered Bauer but the scan results that I got were so far off that I wouldn’t trust my skates to come close to fitting and I thought my feet scanned a little small with my CCM results plus I had a bit of sticker shock with them. If I could have gotten a boot-only order from CCM where I could have installed LS Edge’s on them then I may have gone that route, especially if the costs were relatively comparable to True’s boot-only option. True is also known for its customer service. If I had these problems with a custom Bauer or CCM skate, I would be SOL unless I knew someone. I’m not sure what the complete fascination is with skate weight. No one wants cinder blocks on their feet but If 100g per skate is unbearable for you, then don’t skip leg day. 😊 As IP6Freely stated above, people like us that are regularly on this site and others like it are a tiny subset of hockey players, especially amongst adults. Most people who are True customers that are on here are the small percentage who had problems or fellow gear nerds who want to tell everyone how great their feet finally feel. Most people are in the middle and aren't on these types of websites. Hell, half the guys I see at my rink are rocking gear from companies that no longer exist or the stuff that looks like it was something that Gretzky played with, so they don’t really care about the latest brands and innovations until something breaks on them and then most of the time, they put price and value ahead of whatever the latest and greatest tech is or hot new brand is.

He's certainly taller than me but I have a good 100 lbs on him. Factor that in with giant, weird-shaped feet and pronation issues and you have me... 🙂

I've talked to a handful of shop managers/owners who sell True skates and they said in their observations that 90-95% of skates work for the customer the first time around so yeah, it wouldn't be practical for them to make dozens of sample skates for each retailer to try on, especially when you market yourselves as a true custom skate that doesn't care about standard sizes.

When it comes straight for the horse's mouth, I would assume that it is true. 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNd8ttvFT0k&t=22s

My True scan was done right. I've watched countless videos on Youtube on how it was done so I could make sure it was done right. It's not just an issue with True's fitting process, as I've stated earlier in this thread, Bauer and CCM both gave me weird results, with Bauer's being really wonky.

Yes, he's huge for a pro hockey player but he's tiny next to me. As he's an NHL player and based in Winnipeg, he was fitted in-person by Rob and probably had to have tweaks done on them until he actually skated in them in an actual game.

Right, when making a custom product like a skate and relying on 3D scans being done by vendors instead of being physically measured by company employees there is going to be a certain percentage of skates that have issues. True seems to be doing all that they can to make things right, which is what matters. They have to set themselves apart from the Big 2 as they enter the readily-available custom skate game. I don't what else Chase at Pure Hockey or I could have done to convey my goofy issues. I offered to make 3D molds of my feet and ship them to Winnipeg but I was told that I couldn't do that. From all accounts that I've heard, Rob is a great guy and I have no concern about there being a happy ending.

Oh, I kicked my heels back as far back as I could, my heels were red as hell after baking due to how tight it was in the heels. I don't think these scanners take into account foot shape as I may only be the length of an 11 but I need a 12 due to how wide my toes go out there being almost no curve in my toes; I have almost truly rectangular feet. Factor in my messed up right ankle where I pronate in skates and supinate in shoes, I had to go custom if I was ever going to become a decent skater. They took photos of my feet from all angles, marked my hotspot areas, took photos of my feet in True's Brannock-like device so there was scale and even took photos of the foot tracings that I made with measurements on them that I shipped to the shop with my skates so they knew how much stretching they would have to do when they widened my skates. I was 3D scanned for my True's so there isn't much that they could have done to fit me wrong. It could also be that True and the other companies don't have a lot of experience in making skate comfortable for larger people. A really snug skate for someone that is 5'10" and 180 lbs can be too tight and put too much pressure around the foot to someone that is 6'5" and weighs twice that.

Good news: Rob emailed me back and they're going to make me a new pair. I'll let you all know how the new pair is once they show up.

I don’t think anyone here wants this thread about True skates deviating into a thread about podiatry but I guess it relates to True skates so I’ll keep posting. 😊 As IP6Freely and Nicholas have said, they are known to have done modifications for people with screwy feet and have bragged about them in news interviews that I’ve seen online. I also figured that since VH/True was known for their customer service and being a small operation compared to Bauer & CCM, that they would be better able and more willing to do modifications which is the main reason that I went with them over the other two. The weird thing is that barefoot or in flip flops, I’m perfectly fine and don’t feel any pain or discomfort in my feet or calves but when I put on a pair of shoes off-the-shelf, I have pain in the outside edge of my right foot and my Achilles tendon in my right calf kills me. After I got my first set of skates and had done handful of public sessions, I had a podiatrist make me a set of skate orthotics for my skates and after wearing them a handful of times, I started having the opposite problem and started pronating badly in the skates and the combination of my weight and $200 skates, there wasn’t enough stiffness in the boot for me. After skating for a while, my shoe orthotics had to be adjusted since I wasn’t supinating as badly. I went to my orthotist and told him what was going on, he thought I was BS’ing him, but he tested me and sure enough, he had to adjust my orthotics since I wasn’t supinating nearly as badly as before when wearing shoes. I bought a pair of Super Feet which helped some but was still having pain in the ball of my right foot, so I got some metatarsal pads to put on top of my Super Feet, which helped somewhat but I still had to wear toe caps in both feet, which I think is more of a volume/space issue in the toe box than pronation issue due to the weird shape of my feet as they aren’t comfortable to wear sitting down without any weight put on them as well as the bunion sleeves. Even if pronating for me wasn’t an issue, the skates are too tight and don’t have enough room in the toe box and enough vertical volume. They are uncomfortable to have them on laced up while sitting down and not putting any weight on my feet. Since I was advised to remove the foam spacer in the toe cap, there is zero padding in that area and my toes and bunions have hard plastic or whatever the material is digging into them, even after rebaking doing the tissue technique. I don’t doubt what Vet88 is saying at all but the reality for me is that I live in Alabama and there is nowhere within a day’s drive that I can have shims installed, get holders moved, etc. The one decent LHS in Atlanta I don’t believe can do either thing and after their experience dealing with VH after True bought them, I doubt they would even touch them. That’s why I ideally would want larger skates with more volume in them for footbeds or Bauer Speed Plates as well as extra padding around the bunion and toe box, in general. I emailed them yesterday with my issues but have yet to hear back. We all read and hear the stories of getting custom skates, regardless of manufacturer and that they’re either an improvement of some kind or outright the most comfortable footwear the person owns but these make me want to go back to my $200 N7000’s… ☹

How do I reach out to Rob?

I got scanned about 4pm. I'm hesitant to do anything with insoles as I have plantar fasciitis in my left heel and have pronation/supination issues in my right foot which I think causes me to put my weight on the ball of my foot and in turn push my big toe and bunion into the side of the skates. I have a really flat left foot and my right has a little arch so I'm not super concerned about the arch changing by messing with insoles. I emailed back and forth with True and they just told me to rebake after doing the tissue technique so it seems like they're trying to avoid having to make me a new skate(s).