Larry54

Even though your feet are similar to your dad's, you re-molded them to your own feet, didn't you?

You shouldn't be trying to mold the SpeedPlates to the skate. The Speedplates' purpose is to conform to your feet, not to the skates, otherwise your defeating their purpose. If you really want to use your fingers to shape them, then shape them to your feet and not to the skates. I've read of someone shaping the speedplates to their feet before inserting them into the skates and it did the trick for them. While my arches aren't that high, they're also closer to the front of my feet than the average person. Before getting VH skates I had success with Graf/Sidas molded footbeds in Bauer Flexlites. Orthopedic insoles or orthotics might just do the trick for you.

I had a feeling that would be the case as I wrote about a year ago.

I like the way that the small T is placed like the apostrophe in Irish names starting with O.

I had Bauer/Nike Flexlites that had tongues which looked similar to yours but the middle section was a bit wider like in this picture. The problem I had was that the plastic insert was too low, so when I flexed forward, the top of my ankle would bend over the top of the plastic insert which would sort of dig into my ankle causing lace bite symptoms. I had removed the tongues with the intention of replacing them with something else by unstitching the bottom where they attach to the toe cap. But once the tongue was removed, with the absence of stitching at the bottom of the tongue I saw that I could reach inside and detach the flimsily glued plastic insert and re-position it higher. I then had the tongues re-attached at a sports repair shop. I don't know if the construction of your tongues are the same, but it might be a way of removing the insert or replacing it with something less rigid. I can't guarantee this solution but it might be something to consider ( at your own risk 🙂 ). Or maybe you can heat the tongue nice and slowly with a heat gun and hope the plastic insert gets malleable enough to shape it to the top of your foot. 🤔

If the metal was titanium, I'd surely try it.

Out of curiosity, I've done loose untied laces a couple of times for the first half hour at open practice. It was a real eye opener, to say the least. The mechanics of skating became so much clearer. At my age, only a couple half-hour stints of laceless skating won't turn me into a Paul Coffey, but I truly believe I benefited from the learning experience and will be doing it every opportunity I get. And as a by-product, even though I only skip the top eyelet when playing, I don't tie my skates as tightly as I used to. I used to occasionally be distracted by lack of forward flex while playing but now I'm not even preoccupied with my skating.

Every 6 months or so, I turn on the hot water tap and let the hot water flow into each glove until the water leaking through it turns clear. It removes the crustiness caused by salt deposits and whatever other minerals are in my sweat. You could always wash them afterwards and rinse them again.

theinfamoust94 did you bake them for your feet?

Then get a sharpie and color the top of one of the blades, let's say the right one, so you'll know that the colored one always goes on the right.

I never said I needed to know the difference between right and left steel.

Isn't the blade length etched on the "tangs" on opposite sides of the two blades?

So we can say that a lot of people who think they don't have a problem with the edge holder, because they don't sharpen skates, don't realize that their blade might not be as solidly held as in an LS2 holder. So their blade may be flexing left and right as they're skating, wasting energy, but it's too subtle for them to be conscious of it. Since I never need to change blades between two shifts, I chose LS2 holders since I had that choice when I bought my skates. Having Edge holders on your skates because it was the only choice when buying Bauer skates is one thing, but I wouldn't swap LS2 holders for Edge holders unless you really want/need the quick-change feature.

I have to assume that the 2 skates are physically the same model, but are somehow dressed to look different.

That makes sense. Even before they started using scanning, I was advised to make the tracings and take the measurements barefoot even if I was planning on wearing socks with my skates.

I totally agree with that. If the customer's current skate is the wrong size, it might even be misleading and hurt the process. I feel that it's the reason why my first pair of VH were built one size longer than my current VH.

I had my first pair of VH for 3 years and I've had my second for 2 years, playing 2-3 times a week, and I have no wear in that area. Maybe it has to do with the way he wears his shin pads? The tongues of my skates are tucked under the shin pads, FWIW. Does he flop his tongues?

The foam in the toe box is reminiscent of MLX skates. When they were first released, they didn't have half sizes so they put a "plug" in the toe cap to decrease the boot by a half size. That never made any sense to me. I mean, we basically tolerate having our toes brush the inside of the toe cap for the benefit of having the smallest, lightest, close-fitting skate possible. Having a piece of foam to imitate the feel of brushing the toe cap in an overly large skate is the exact opposite of this concept. It didn't make sense with the MLX skates and makes even less sense now with a custom skate. I mean I love my VH skates but I'm frankly disappointed in your situation. Again I hope True make this right for you.

Roy Clark

Maybe I wasn't clear. I meant that I felt that the skates were longer than they should be for my feet, not the holders. I'll edit my previous post to replace "they" with "the skate boots", for clarity.

No problem. I totally understand your frustrations. The reason for my question about blade size goes back to my first pair of VH, 5 years ago. One of the many pieces of info that they asked for was current skate brand and size, and current blade size. Even though I wore size 7 Bauer with "263" blades, I wrote that I believed the skate boots were longer than they should be, but I had chosen that length to avoid having the toe cap pinch my weird, wide forefoot and toes. I also mentioned that I wouldn't mind going with shorter blades if the ideal boot for my foot was shorter than my current pair. Then I received VH skates that were the same length as my Bauers with "263" blades and just assumed they knew better even though there was a good 7-8mm ahead of my toes. The skates fit so well otherwise with the molding that I felt good about the skates. Three years later, when I saw that other VH owners had much closer fitting skates lengthwise, I decided to order a new pair. I sent several e-mails to Rob insisting on a closer fitting boot, asking him to throw out the data on my first boots, even specifically asking for "254" blades because I knew that "263" blades could not fit on shorter boots. My current VH skates are closer to a size 6 with "254" blades and fit perfectly. Not knowing what their thinking was at the time, I felt they might have made the boots long enough to fit the "263" blades that they thought I would be more familiar with. That's why I asked you if you requested oversized holders. I was just trying to figure out why they would have made you longer boots. But from your description, it sounds like True are really way off on this one and I hope they will make it right for you.

I'm just trying to help. A simple "No" would have answered my question.

Did you ask for a specific blade size? If you asked for an oversized blade, they might have built the boot longer so it can accommodate the requested holder. I know it's not a good reason for building an ill-fitting boot, but it would be good to know everything that might have contributed to this situation.

Something just occurred to me. We always compare the weight of True skates with other brands' retail skates. Do NHL players' custom CCM and Bauer skates weigh the same as the retail versions or are they built up for extra stiffness and/or durability and are thus heavier? True only have one spec which is custom pro spec, so are we comparing apples to oranges when we compare their weight to other brands' retail skates?

$19US plus $79.99US for shipping to Canada. LOL what a steal!