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flip12

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Everything posted by flip12

  1. Huh, interesting. Do the top eyelets on the Trues come up higher on your leg? It's hard to see an exact comparison from your picture due to the perspective angle, and it looks like some of it could be the subtraction CCM's made to the back of their retail boots in recent iterations. I didn't realize CCM dropped their boot height that much. I thought they used to be taller internally.
  2. True can get away with a tighter wrap because they're lower cut. Higher cut boots have to flare out to allow for ankle ROM without scraping away the soft tissue of the ankle. The skate is meant to hold that shape at all costs--that flare is in large part the essence of what it is, design-wise. I haven't tried to do it, but my guess would be you'll dislike the softness you'll need to induce in the shell to achieve the wrap you're after. Kovalchuk has it in his Vapors, but they're Nylon/tech-mesh, not CURV, fibreglas, or composite like contemporary skates are, and I'd bet he deliberately creases them to hell upon baking them to achieve the flex X wrap he wants, because you see it in his Return Of The Kovy era NHL skates that look relatively new.
  3. That's also a possibility. But one that I consider sometimes, not assume. However, from the anecdotes I've picked up, it seems like those experiments used to branch out in an idiosyncratic evolution. Once in a while, others would hop onto what they saw their buddies using: Yzerman going for Sakic's curve even though Yzerman's own was probably the most used in the NHL at the time, for example. Grant Marshall (I think it was) using Brett Hull's spec, Malkin picking up various patterns from teammates, from Pouliot's stock P88 to Galchenyuk's family's secret sauce pattern. Sometimes you see players start with something and then do pretty much the same thing to it, like Ryan Smyth almost ending up with a mirrored Kovalchuk at the end of his career--except that Smyth was still using wood blades and didn't add the toe shave to his (if not exact, very close to) E4 he was curving. The potential permutation space is vast, yet it's still likely there have been several instances of two players recreating the same thing separately, but in any case, anecdotes I've heard of usually involve one player completely abandoning his stick design evolution branch for another.
  4. I'm thinking autocorrect put Brett instead of Brent Burns. BB still looks to be using the Gionta that he's sworn by for years now, which was also Big Mac's go to before going to the P92 he's on now. Barzal used it for a couple of years as well. I've wondered about the P28 origin. Bjugstad also claims to have invented it, of course. Some say it was Kreps, some say it was Ovechkin or Fisher. We need a proper oral history of this thing because as usual there are conflicting claims, as there are with the Sakic. Sakic said he created it but H. Ghassemi claims to have introduced it to Easton because he couldn't shoot with any of the curves they had in the era of making the T-Flex into the Synergy (he was a product guy there and the original he says the original retail Sakic was his custom curve he had on some Sher-Woods). I've looked through the images of Kreps on Getty and it looks like he went back and forth between Kovalchuk and Ovechkin patterns before settling on the E28. Those two actually make sense as potential inputs to making the E28. Ovechkin's basically got the E6 with a slightly more mid-focused second pocket. Kovalchuk had the E4 with the toe curve closer to the location of the E28 pocket and a focused toe shave for puck-ice-blade contact. E28 is kind of a blend of those two. Fisher started using the E28 around the same time though, IIRC. It could be Kreps switched to that after having tried something to either side of it and never looked back. If that were the case, it would seem weird Easton put his number on it, since Fisher was an even more dedicated Easton stick user. They need to get Fisher on one of the hockey podcasts and open up for audience questions so we can some inside perspective.
  5. There are plenty of forwards using P28 too. I don't know statisticks on it or anything, but I can think of a lot of notable players using P28. Then there's the Oates effect where he funnels a lot of players to Stamkos' P92 variant, or something close to it. Funnily enough, Stammer's actually gone the other way, using P28 the last few years. When it comes down to it, P28 and P92 are more alike than they are different. Both 1) have a decent amount of loft without being obscenely open, 2) are compound heel-and-toe curves, 3) with a flat(ter) heel rocker and more aggressive toe rocker. The toe shapes are different of course, and the discontinuity of the heel-to-toe rocker is a bit more pronounced on P28, but to me, the main difference is the gravitational center of the compound curve pocket is at the heel of the P92 and at the toe of the P28. That's the thing I love about the P28 that I was missing until it came on the scene--the toe-dominant pocket. The aggressiveness of the standard heel curve that formed the basis of most of the patterns of yore threw me off. Sher-Wood Coffey and Montreal PC were some exceptions, P89 as well (when you could find it), with a few other short-lived Warriors like the Smyth and Gionta were some notable exceptions. If only Bjugstad had made the P46 a blend of the E4 blade face with the P28 curve instead of the P92, I could call it a day and never have to think about curves ever again. As it is, the P28 works about as well as anything I've ever had my hands on when the balance is right.
  6. P28 is a great passing curve, just like its predecessor, Easton Drury/E6. The toe modifications don’t take the Drury away; just add a little party to the tail end.
  7. I'm leaning towards putting heel lifts on mine. I like the holder, but I feel like I'm not forward enough, especially on starts. My favorite holder and steel spec has been the classic Graf Cobra 11' radius with aggressive pitch. Does anyone have a suggestion on how much of a heel lift I should request to achieve that feel on my Cat7s?
  8. A. Yes (96% sure). C. No (100% sure: Shift and Shift Max are the only switch holders I’m aware of—that is a Shift (Max) holder is one shape that goes on a left or right skate whereas the others have a left holder and a right holder and they can’t mix and match holder sides and skate sides, so they’re not going to line up with the Shift (Max) holes). B. Sounds right but I can’t remember the specifics.
  9. Sorry, I meant the new runners, not holders.
  10. How much do the new holders weigh compared to the old ones?
  11. Definitely address the straps if the elbows are otherwise still going strong. I have a friend who replaced his saggy-strap Jofas with CCM Tacks and he was very disappointed in the protection.
  12. Bauer keeps experimenting with weight reduction on the upper half of the steel, from perforated steel for Custom+ and LS/2, to combo runners Fusion and Carbonlite. My first thought was this was just a new way to try and reduce runner weight while also making it harder to manufacture aftermarket steel.
  13. I have a similar experience in new Catalyst 7s. I loved the flatter steel at the heel from the first step on the ice, but just felt like I was forced upright and like there was too much steel on the toe. I swapped the stock tongues out for some with more flex and the feeling was 10x better. The tongue can have even more impact on how easily you can get in the right position over your edges than the rest of the boot.
  14. As they say, what happens in Vegas… …can become a viral sensation on the internet!
  15. That’s what I thought. My guess was they stuck with the same last but just slid the scale till the volume was a better match for the general standard. The toe cap certainly would have an effect. I was just surprised by @VegasHockey’s take because he’s a lot more familiar with the nuances of current skates than I am.
  16. Did they change the sizing from TF to Catalyst, or did the new toe cap just make the fit feel smaller?
  17. FT6 looks like Microsoft Windows.
  18. Depends on what your definition of P14 is… •P14 in CCM = PM9: flatter rocker than most. •P14 in Bauer is a very rockered blade. Closer to P28 style than P92. If you don’t like much rocker run in the opposite direction.
  19. 707s allow you to lock in the talus, crucial to heel lock, while the top 3 eyelets can be as tight or as loose as you please. The problem for most skaters is they panic as soon as there’s the slightest bit of give in that hinge area, so most newer boots lock it down with extra depth and stiffness. JetSpeeds tended to be on the softer side in that regard (I’m not super familiar with more recent iterations of the JS Fam) but still nowhere near a 707.
  20. Is their policy (“protocol” might fit better) to test helmets that are too big? Where do they say that? ”Hockey injuries” is a broad category. On the other hand, it’s also narrower than the scope of the Hockey STAR rating system when it comes to cumulative brain impact: when most people talk about brain protection in hockey, they talk about concussions. Hockey STAR isn’t just modeling exposure to concussion-inducing impacts, they model the probable exposure to brain trauma at a given level of hockey (depending on age, competitiveness of the league, etc.) The research on the impact of brain trauma on athletes lives is all relatively new, but it seems concussions get all of the attention and overall brain trauma isn’t even considered in the popular discourse; hence the chestnut, “you don’t even have to hit your head to get a concussion, so these ratings are meaningless.” That’s like saying birth control isn’t 100% effective so there’s no point in seeing how effective various methods are, to the best of our knowledge. I agree with almost everything you say in your second paragraph. I don’t think the problem you outline is particular to this lab’s work, but rather the crux of the issue in the interface between research and the rest of the world. Research often involves much more nuance than the general public and its information disseminating apparatuses tend to have a taste for. This slants the public representation of a lot of research results towards tidy boxes that are crude reflections of the dynamics at play in the raw material, and rewards researchers whose production lends itself to crude boxing. The financial mess entailing that boxing function is a ferocious beast.
  21. Are you sure they aren’t getting the same snugness they would in the smaller size? Another possibility is they’re erring on the side of best possible rating for a given helmet model. A larger helmet that’s mostly closed will have more shell overlap and more mass overall than a smaller helmet of the same model that’s mostly open, once both sizes are adjusted to the same head circumference (mass won’t change but the degree of overlap will). Both shell overlap and greater mass would contribute positively to impact dissipation.
  22. Is it a bad thing if they opt for the bigger of two possible fits? No one would read all of that if they had a breakdown of fitting each helmet. As it is now their work is too long for most people to read, judging by the accuracy of the bulk of the critique their work gets.
  23. Now that you mention it, True has had significant problems with straight Shift holder + steel combos. I wonder if the shell's underbelly still causes issues even for the narrower Shift holder.
  24. You're right in that helmets can't protect against whiplash. But that's not to say there isn't substantial impact to the head where helmets can play a part in minimizing the damage, both to the skull and its contents. No helmet is concussion proof. But they are not created equal in how much they dissipate the impact to the head either. Re: the helmet has to fit for it to work discussion, the VT STAR lab actually wrote a whole article talking about the importance of fit when assessing helmet performance in the lab and how that relates to real life: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/publications.html#56 As usual, the story is more nuanced than the popular discussion. Also as usual, it's still not perfect. It never is.
  25. flip12

    P46

    P46 is a Krepsified (Kreps = P28) E4. Curve wise it's closest to a P92: a heel curve that continues to curve a little less at the toe. It's about the same loft as well. It has a shaved toe but otherwise it's an E4 blade shape. There's not much P88 there except for the fact that they're both on the lower end of the lie scale.
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