flip12

I miss having a pair. I have a stash of skates that work very well for me, but having experimented with a lot of different skates, 703 is just about perfect for me. The only thing I would change is having the padding-shell composition of the ONE90. That would be perfect.

The Vapor fit has always been evolving while maintaining some essential qualities. The recent evolution has me thinking it's not really Vapor anymore. The main thing is the death of the L pattern of the quarter panels. Vapor used to be distinctly shallow, now it's closer to the classic Supreme cut than the original Vapor. I'm not sure you would like an X:60 with CURV quarters if you didn't like APX. The X:60-CURV would probably be closer to APX than to X:60. Bauer went to the TrueLasted fit right from the start with CURV boots. It seems like that extra wiggle room ruins the fit for you. The same goes for the more anatomical toe cap that came out on the 2X.

I actually prefer extra pitch. I had Catalyst 7s for a while. It helped with the +1 on the Ellipse II I had put on them, but they never really felt right for me. In the end my back was killing me when I wore them, so I sold them. Switching to my X:60s, the back pain went away immediately. I had MLX that I wore until they almost fell apart. The Catalysts were just too puffy and distant from the shell in comparison for me.

My favorite skates are the ones with the least padding. I like feeling close to the shell. I'm intrigued by the Vizion's description, which sounds a lot like a return to the ONE90 minimal negative space concept.

PRO29 is neutral faced compared to the wedgy P28. Look for more loft in whatever you get. Hossa could work. Other than the toe shape that is kind of a blend of P28 and PRO29: loftier, especially from the mid to the toe. PRO97 would probably be pretty weird. It's supposed to be considerably lower than the others you mentioned. I haven't seen one in person to confirm though.

ProStockHockeySticks is a good option if you don't want to switch from the pattern you know.

7K style shins are hard to beat. I have a pair of 3195s that are holding up great after 12+ years of regular use. They could use new liners, but the meat and bones of the pads are in great shape.

As others have touched on already, my takeaway is this is nothing new. Jofa never really went away either. The name was retired, but its influence is everywhere. Almost everything on the market today is a direct descendent of Jofa or a clear rip off of it. The weird stuff Bauer has is different, and Sher-Wood has their own things or rip offs of Warrior's retired patterns. Jofa is still king. Always has been.

A lot of the old retail curves like PM9, E7, E6, P38, etc., are only available on the OGs Red and Blue. They're really nice too though. I prefer the balance off the shelf of the OGs over my VF.

Spurgeon's got that deep toe pocket, indeed. He was asking about the Zegras though, PRO9246, which has a little toe, nothing huge.

I'd say it's a heel and toe curve. It makes sense that you might feel like that makes it end up like a mid curve, but to me it doesn't play that way. It depends on where the puck is on the blade, which of the two pockets it's around. I don't find Bjugstad's descriptions very helpful. For some they might be, but to me they're just confusing. P46 is what you get when you apply the modification steps that made the E6 the P28 to the E4/PM9 instead. It's the same thing, take a heel curve, add some toe curve, shave the toe to make shooting a bit smoother and you end up with a combo curve era pattern: E28, P46, P30, P90, P86...they're all similar in their combo curves. Blade shapes may vary.

I only got to hold a P86/Zegras for a minute so my memory is pretty vague. It has a definite toe component to its curve, but it's not as big as I expected. It seemed like the toe pocket was closer to the same size as the heel pocket on the P92. I didn't test it on the ice, so I can't comment about how it plays. P46 has a little toe curve, but it's somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 as deep of a pocket as the heel curve on it. I don't really feel like the P46 plays like a mid curve, but that could be because I find the heel curve on it annoying, like it's putting the parts of the blade I want to work with so far to the forehand that I have to mentally adjust for it a bit. I think I play it more like a heel curve and a toe curve, depending on the scenario, or more like I'm pretending it's a toe curve that happens to protrude awkwardly from the heel. P28 is dual curve like that for me. When I want to saucer pass, I usually use the heel curve; shoot or slip-under-the-defender's-stick pass, toe curve. I hadn't thought about it like this before, but it seems like each pocket can operate as its own locus of activity. I suspect P86 would be the same, since it has the two pockets as well. I think the difference for me with mid curves is, they're really just one continuous pocket. I haven't used a proper mid curve in quite a while. The closest in my collection is Warrior Smyth and P89. The Smyth is nice, but I sometimes find the puck annoyingly active on the blade while I'm carrying the puck...kind of like a car with aggressive lane-assistance. P89 is better in that respect, because the heel is very quiet. I didn't realize how important that can be until I adapted to Kovalev's early pro curve. The heel on that is super straight. There's some loft, and it does have some initial heel curve, but then it goes straight until it kinks again a smidge at the toe. Stickhandling with that is a dream because the puck stays right where it is along the length of your blade. I've never fully adapted to shooting with it though... Sorry, I'm ranting. It's all to say, it's surprisingly complicated for me to answer your curve style question. I think this is an aspect of pro-inspired curves that hasn't gotten much focus yet. So much was made of the "dual lie" of the P28, but it's every bit as dual curve as it is dual lie. Maybe that's why it's hit or miss for a lot of people.

Absolutely, Zegras is different. The curves might be quite close actually, pretty similar idea, but the blade shape and lie are quite different from each other. Pro gave the retail P46 the pattern name PRO4466. It looks to be available on the OG lines, albeit sold out at the moment if you're a lefty. PM9 is 5 by Easton scale, 4 old Warrior, 5.5 CCM. That's where it got confusing. CCM had the P28 and P46 out at the same time for a while and labeled the P28 lie 5 because that was the mistaken convention, while P46, because they were the only ones offering it, they measured it according to their system and slotted it at 5.5. Side by side, it's clear as day the P46 is lower. I love the P46, there's just enough loft but not too much, the heel is rockered as well as the toe, making it a bit more forgiving than the P28 at the extremities. Ideally I'd definitely flatten the heel curve, almost completely, and potentially alter the toe rocker and toe shape.

I'm not the best to ask when it comes to lie. I used to be stuck on Easton 5 lie blades, basically Modano retail, Warrior Smyth, and Sher-Wood Coffey, but I hardly notice lie changes now. It took a little while to adjust to catching passes away from the body with P28, but I had no issues adjusting to the high lie on the Kane Pro when I had one.

One of my teammates ordered one and regretted it. He's usually a P92 or P28 guy. He's got P28 and P28M from Pro now, and really likes them. I toyed around with it after he decided to shop it around to anyone who might take it off his hands. I thought it was alright. It was a little hard to get a great sense of because it was the super round shaft shape, which isn't as much my thing. I liked the straighter portion on the heel of the blade, but the toe shape wasn't really great for me. That might have changed if I tweaked the balance a bit.