flip12

@Steve_v3, do you have a cobbler you've had repair shoes for you? I imagine taking it to them, they could stitch some supplementary wings onto your tongues where they're needed. I imagine it wouldn't cost nearly as much as other options.

Have you taken the insole out to see how it lines up with your foot? Lacking x-ray vision it can be hard to see what’s going on with the fit, and seeing is often believing. You have some peculiarities with your feet it sounds like you’re on top of, which is great. But size is just a reference number, and sometimes doesn’t align to what’s expected at all. Try to ignore the number for everything but knowing where you’re at in the fit scale. Don’t let a number scare you from buying the skate that fits the best.

@PBH predicted it. What I find interesting is Bauer looks to be getting to a one-piece skate faster than it looked like they were going to.

I know I’ve drummed this beat several times but P28 doesn’t require you to shoot from any particular place. It does have a limbo spot mid-toe which is a generally safe release point on many patterns. This leads to a lot of people writing off all but the toe launch zone but such a limit P28’s release capabilities is just a common misperception.

I don't understand Barzal's shin taping. It looks like it would dig into the ligaments on the back of the knee. Though he has some tape around the top eyelet and back of the boot, he still skips the top eyelet. But without him explaining the feel he's getting from it, it's hard to tell if it ads a significant degree of support. It certainly isn't inhibiting his ankle flexion: That tendon guard is leaving him wide open to a Cookey cutter.

I did a little digging (clicked on the link and scrolled for a few seconds) and got the impression it’s “Derby” as in roller derby, in which case it seems to make hockey sense. They’ve got rainbow tracked: https://derbylaces.com/shop/derby-laces/waxed-laces/rainbow-72-inch-183-cm-derby-laces-waxed-roller-derby-skate-lace A little short for anything but kids’ and Bobby Orr’s boots though. Edit: did a little more scrolling, then a search and found they seem to have all the specific pride variants represented: https://derbylaces.com/?s=Pride+style&post_type=product

TF9 is top of the line, but True isn’t really feature oriented in that way. In my opinion, the features in new generations of skates are mostly there to justify changing to a new model year. True’s emphasis seems to line up with this. The core of what they do is incredibly solid and they prefer to tweak that to keep the focus on fit and function over making false promises about how a boot will make you faster. TF was their first line of ready to buy skates and the marketing focus was on how they were able to make a new shell to allow similar fit and performance from their custom offering at retail and an incredibly hard to refuse price point.

But the holders won’t be going in the oven at all, if I’m understanding correctly, only the boots will.

I haven't seen the same feature I'm thinking of in Microns. I know they had the notch cut out between the third and fourth eyelets. I'm pretty sure every brand has tried that, though most stopped before Micron featured it. The Graf flex zone I'm referring to isn't actually a notch, but an extra space between the top and second eyelets on many Graf models. Graf's usually-lower boot height makes this roughly a spacing between the second and third eyelets on more traditionally cut boots. It's sort of a forced eyelet skip, though not as big of a jump as a full eyelet skip, promoting forward flex. CCM started having more space there in the second gen. JetSpeed, if I recall correctly. Now Bauer's doing it and emphasizing it the same way Mission did 15+ years ago.

Clever. Another Graf detail incorporated by the other brands. CCM had that gap there first, going a few generations back. Now Bauer's got it and throwing in the flex dart for emphasis.

Also looks like there’s a Missionesque flex notch between the 2nd and 3rd eyelets at the top.

...

Let’s see it!

Happy to help! I was actually sitting and doing some design sketches when I came across this topic.

Just sketched this up. Nothing revolutionary, but it's pretty true to the original.

Why don’t they just sew them to the boot?

Can you post some pictures of him playing with 5 eyelets laced? That's worth seeing. All-Star games? At what level?

Didn’t Evans tape his tendon guard, tongue and upper eyelets in a bundle like Orr?

It looks like the TF goalie skates, just with different graphics and a tendon guard. The toe cap and quarter pieces all look very similar to the branding and shell-covering scheme as the TF goal skates.

Wouldn't more surface melt mean more drag? Comparing to faster ice being ice that's colder, with less of a liquid (pseudo?)layer.

I find it much easier to sprint in my MLX boots that are ~ 70 grams lighter than my classic Grafs, even though I find the flex profile of the Grafs more natural. It sounds dumb it's so simple, but my feet definitely feel significantly lighter in the MLX.

First paragraph, how would that work? Would it require a new holder or steel cross section? Second paragraph, weren’t Ti runners used in the 90’s? What’s the story with those? Another note in general, on the mass reduction compared to other steel options, at least A/B testing is as simple as swapping out steel. You could test everything, blind ideally. One CarbLite blade in one holder and something else in the other. Then opposite sides, one full set then the other. It would be interesting to see how perceptible the difference is, or if the feel is comparable, etc.

Nitpicking here, but one skate blade on the ice most of the time, not all of the time. The fastest skaters incorporate some jump between strides when they can. I think that's one major differentiator in acceleration performance.

I've struggled with heel lock in my MLX in the past, and when I tried to really kick my heels in on rebakes, it made a huge difference. The best heel lock I got came from three focus points for me: 1. Kicking my heel in really well, as previously mentioned. The heel of SVH boots is so cavernous and the Achilles area so pliable that it just feels nice when you bake it and it's easy to miss the importance of this step to really drive the fit home there. You really want to get a snug connection between the boot and the foot above the calcaneus. Failing to drive your foot far enough back will kill this. 2. Lacing snug, without overdoing it, from the bottom eyelets by the toe box all the way up to but excluding the third eyelet from the top. I didn't lace or wrap the top with plastic wrap but that's because I like a good deal of eversion in my stride and wrapping the firm facing and quarters prevents that rotation. 3. Massaging the outside of the boot above the heel to promote secure fit around the Achilles.

I don't jive with modern skates. The best I've found are MLX, which are just as low cut as my 703s but so much stiffer in the facing that it's hard to get the right balance of feel for the boot and range of motion. 703s just work for me. I just got sucked down this rabbit hole of trying to stuff my feet into the smallest boot I could stand in search of "performance fit," but so far, it seems to just stunt my stride to not have a little wiggle room for the foot to expand on landing and push. I'll give my very snug 703s a few more tries and if they're a no go, I think I'll spring for the F60s, even if I'm a little suspicious of the finer details now. The picture shows Clarino, but the description says Airnet. I think I'll get an actual photo instead of the stock one before buying, just to make sure it's not going to be a blob tongue and tendon guard fiasco. That's the perfect way to sum it up. The G35s feel like a good imitation of a Graf skate, but without the actual soul and appreciation of what makes Graf Graf. You had me convinced on your last 11 words. I just have plenty of skates from all of my research and experimentation and would be thrilled to find something that works in my arsenal if I have it already.