Radien55

I'm on size 9 with 280mm runners. Wow that's shallow, I thought mine was high at 1 1/16". 1 1/2" is impressive!

I'm more of a longer strides skater, so with your description in mind I don't think Ellipse is for me. I definitely don't want to sacrifice glide and stability. What size skates and runners are you on with Quad Zero?

Did you ever find a profile that's better than the Quad? Did you switch to something else: Successfully or eventually came back to the Quad? Personally I can't skate in Zuperior they feel like skis. Transitions are terrible and I skate backwards a lot. Too long in the front and not enough blade contact in the rear half. I catch edges all the time. I have never tried Ellipse so I can't comment on them, but an ellipse is just a squished circle, so it seems like they would feel long?.. The Quad (2) is great! I have been using it for the last 2 years and I love the pitch and agility in the front, with a lot of blade on the ice in the rear half. Thanks to the pitch (-20mm pivot point) you have a lot of steel under your heels to work with and you can really lean into the heels without ever tipping backwards. Move your weight just slightly forward and you can transition so easily, they are very responsive and don't require big movements to achieve what you want, so they don't tire you out like bigger profiles do. The only downside is that it has transition points all over the blade. When you are on a transition point, you don't have a contact patch with the ice, so the skate wobbles backwards/forwards until it finds the next radii section. This can be unsettling. It is especially noticeable when you jump out the door onto the ice on one skate, you can feel the blade hesitate and wobble over a transition point instead of smoothly gliding along the ice. I have not found a profile that gives me everything the Quad does, so I just live with it, but I am curious if there is profile that solves that without feeling long?

Update: I tried a 1" longer stick. It's slightly above my upper lip on skates and I'm not used to playing with such a long stick, so it was a bit difficult. Passing and shooting works, stick handling through a line of pucks was quite awkward. It could maybe work on D but as a forward I think it's too long for me. malcb33 & cougarscaptain87: How high does your P90TMs reach? Chin, lower lip? I play well with the 3/8" longer P90TM, but I notice that I compensate for the lie with my skating and posture being more leaned forward, so it needs to be longer. I will try to narrow down the perfect length, it should be somewhere between 1/2" - 3/4" longer

Two votes for 1". Interesting! 1" seems like a lot, I was expecting answers in the ballpark of 1/2". My P90TMs were 3/8" and 5/8" longer than my P29. I might have to go back to the drawing board and try 1". I taped up a third stick 1" longer, I will bring it and try.

I hear you on the 1/4" length difference. A 1/4" to 3/8" change can make a big difference. This is a positive, not a negative. It means you have come a long way in fine-tuning your gear and are highly in tune with your "instrument", the muscle memory is set. I remember a pro player saying a 3/8" difference would throw him off completely. I have a P29 that's 3/8" shorter than my main stick and it's fun to play with a shorter stick but I notice my stick handling at speed suffers because it forces me to carry the puck closer to my body. I understand that no amount of length compensation can make it feel the same. You either A) make it longer so your top hand is at the same height, but now the puck is further away from you. or B) Keep the same length so the puck distance is the same, but now your top hand is awkward and has to be much lower. or C) Some kind of compromise between the two. I bought a few P90TMs a couple of years ago and cut two of them to different lengths, one is 1/4" (that's ironic, they actually are 1/4" apart, I just measured them) shorter than the other. I mainly play with P29s, but I bring them out every three months and there are periods where I love it followed by periods where I hate it. I still have not come far enough in fine tuning the length, partly because after a couple of "oopsies" during games I quickly switched back to the P29.

How much longer are your P90TMs compared to your P29s? I presume you came from the P29/92 to the P90TM and as the lie is lower, I'm curious what adjustments to stick length you have made to make it work, or if you keep them the same length. As for the measurement, are we talking straight up against a wall or do you measure top to heel?

Thank you for giving such detailed instructions! I have a couple of questions if you don't mind? #3 What black dot? Is it on the Prosharp Machine? I could not see a black dot in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bZzqUL9hws #4 When you place fresh blades normally on the rollers/balls, they will be level. If you place them back like this, will the front of the blade be slightly tilted up in the air and is that the point? P.S sorry for waking this thread from the dead.

Is it possible to customize the blade or pick a build with a softer blade? If it would feel like a 2N Pro in the blade as well, it would be pretty sweet. I take it you are a P90TM user. I played with it a lot but I prefer the P92, mostly due to the lie, the blade is quite alright. The Ben Pro is just a P92 with a toe kink, I think I would like this one, curious to try it or the Zegra P86. I had never heard of a Big Benn, but I googled and it looks pretty close to the retail P90TM. It's odd that he doesn't offer it on the regular builds, it's quite a common curve.

Definitely. They need to motivate the price increases with something, lower weight, different materials/manufacturing process, ultra low/supermid kickpoint, etc. The result is a higher price and a less durable product. Extra added bonus is that the end user will need to replace them more often too, doubly whammy for the bottom line. Which custom build did you do, G63XL? Sounds great except the pingy blade. I was thinking of ordering a couple of VF P92 sticks, hoping they would be somewhat similar to the Jetspeed line. What did you not like about them?

Oh I remember. As a kid I had a Titan, (fiberglass?) and the blade snapped pretty quickly, they were breaking all the time. This was relatively new tech at the time though and they didn't cost $400. The sticks of the last 10 years have been much better indeed, but when you see weights of 340g, price of $400 and it breaks after a couple of one-timers, we're heading in the wrong direction.

Those are actually two of my favorite sticks as well. The FT2 was nice, FT3 Pro was amazing but fragile. FT5 Pro was the culmination of the Jetspeed lineup. Great feeling and shooting stick like you said, better than the FT2 and more durable than the FT3 Pro. I stocked up on FT5 Pros, so I have not tried the later models. Can you still custom order these from CCM? Is the min order 6 or more? Nexus 2N Pro, Great shooting stick, kickpoint is perfect. very durable and still no cracks on mine. I would love to get more. After, they went to the 5-sided shaft on the Geo and Sync, not a fan. Many NHL players still use the 2NPROXL dressed as a Geo/Sync/Tracer. I would too if I could. Bauer should just make the 2N Pro again. I have every Trigger from 1 to 7, (I avoided the latter ones due to the helicoid blades). The Trigger 6 and 7 Pro standout as the best of the lineup, very nice feeling and shooting sticks. My 7 Pro has developed a crack near the bottom of the shaft though, but it has seen years of use by now. This one goes in the top 3 as well. I used the Tacks AS 3,4,V Pro. ASV Pro shot really well, favorite in the lineup but I never really gelled with these sticks. Feel was quite different from the above mentioned sticks. That's the Top 3 for me: FT5 Pro, Trigger 7 Pro, 2N Pro. Not Necessarily in that order though.

I have tried some older Vapor sticks, but I can't say for sure if it was the 1X lite. However looking at the specs, it's 397g. That's the sweet spot of light enough and still durable. You don't need more and I rather have that, than a new $400 stick that shoots great for 10 shots then dies. Sticks have fallen off a cliff in the chase of being light, I've never seen sticks break so often as they do now. There are 1-3 sticks breaking almost every NHL game I watch, which is pretty crazy because it is a new stick for basically every or every few games, it's not high mileage sticks that have been worn down.

Your favorite sticks from the last ten years (or ever). Pick a top 3, or top 5 if it's hard to narrow it down. I thought this would be a fun topic, sticks have developed a lot, sometimes maybe too much where they become very light and fragile and don't last very long. Some might like the latest tech or prefer an older model, or somewhere between. Naturally, professional players get theirs for free, so durability is less of a concern for them. I even heard an NHL player said he used a new stick for every game. A luxury most of us don't have. Many Pros stay with an older model dressed as something new. The reasons for that could be many; consistency, don't like the changes made, etc.. If you could also order your favorite (discontinued) model instead of switching to the latest release, what would you pick and why?

Now when I searched there were more options. Interestingly enough, both Bauer Nexus and CCM HP45 pro stock have the belly flap. These pants all look very solid.

Yes, they are a bit more streamlined, countered to the body without being too tight. Both the 3S and Mach fit me very well. I also tried the XF Pro and Jetspeed Pro, but they were smaller in the same size and going up in size made them too long. Quality pants though.

How do you get a hold of pro stock pants exactly? I've only looked a little bit on sidelineswap and it was mostly pants that were quite worn, from the less popular teams.

I know what you mean, but there is no padding anywhere in that region, it is just the closure system, which is very thin. I bought the pants, I'll try to get a picture of it. There is less protection in that area. However, I do not think it will cause any big gaps. Last game (I paid more attention than I ever have to that region and) I noticed that the flap of the 3S pants overlap quite a bit with the extension pad (bottom) of my Ultrasonic shoulder pads, when you are in a skating position. Overall, the pants are very nice and I am happy with them.

I have almost the same pants, Supreme 3S and the flap isn't very thick, but there is at least something there, even if it is a placebo effect. I never noticed it get in the way though. Thanks for the explanation! I figured it had to be something like that, because they would not remove it, if it was important. The pants have tons of protection every else, way beyond what the 3S offers. So it wouldn't make sense to skimp there. I will get a pair and see how it goes.

I am thinking about getting new pants and I like the Machs, but I noticed they don't have the belly flap protection and thought that was kind of strange, as most pants have it. I looked at them in the store today and there is nothing behind the closure system, which is very thin itself, so the only protection in this region is the jock and there would perhaps be a gap between it and the shoulder pads. Does anyone have experience with this, is this an issue?

Wow that sounds like perfection! You say bars instead of template, so there is no OMNI Quad template that would work on a Prosharp machine? When I skate on Quad 2, sometimes if feels like I hit a transition point and lose grip for a split second before it catches again and that is a bit sketchy. I have been very reluctant to try the ellipse profiles for that very fact that you don't know what you will get, so it feels like a total crapshoot and I don't want to waste steel trying back and forth. If I can see numbers, it makes it easier because I know what I like. I'd take a Zuperior and shorten the 13' section a bit in the front to 10' for more agility. Not as much as the Quad 2 because it lost some speed and is too much on the toes. I guess something in between the Zuperior M and Quad 2 would be the sweet spot.

Yeah I was really confused about that too in the beginning, (still kind of am). They use two different words to describe the same thing, or two different methods to achieve the same result. I think (big emphasis on think, so any sharpening gurus please correct me if this is wrong) the old machines had a function to profile pitch and it was labeled as such. You would move a lever to x degrees and that would tilt the template and become the pitch profiled onto the blade (i.e. 9.5/10.5 with 1 degree forward pitch). With modern machines (that may not have the pitch lever) they do it by moving the pivot point. This is my current understanding of it, feel free to correct if I got something wrong.

I have not tried them, but in my experience, even the FT6/ASV do not fit the same as the Pro versions so I would advice you to test them first. It is the same for Bauer, Machs fit different than the M5 Pro. The latter is more narrow.

Yes that is how it works. If you have a blade in front of you, put it on a table with a pen under the middle of the blade, then move the pen back 20mm and see how the front of the blade falls forward.

Yes that makes a lot of sense! I would lose more steel and be even more pitched. The Quad 2 already took off a lot of steel compared to a Zuperior profile and I don't want to remove more. I do like the quad, just feel the pitch is a bit much. Thank you for explaining. I have not heard of OMNI profiles or Blackstone, most shops here only have Prosharp machines and templates.