flip12

Interesting. Thanks for the detailed reply. Is there any chance of seeing this work in more detail?

@JD17 I personally like the Graf ones, but I that's the brand I liked the best before trying Scott Van Horne's boots. The other suggestions, like Elite's insole by @Buzz_LightBeer, and SpeedPlates by @Sniper9 are good ones too. The Graf ones are a bit basic, where some of the more recent innovations in insoles are big hits with some users. Plus, @mtn noticed a downgrade in later Graf footbeds... ... so the basic foam ones you might find now might have the same problem, right off the bat. To begin with, to test if the insoles are the main culprit, bring any old insoles you might have to your next skate and swap them in and out with the stock ones you've been using. If you have something else that eliminates most of the play in your heel lock, you're good to go with a solid alternative until you find something ideal. I don't have experience with aftermarket outsoles, and just happen to have a massive stash from collecting a crazy amount of skates over the last few years. I hope this is the right direction to fix your problem. It just sounds similar to what I experienced with the MLX outsoles, and I was amazed at how much of an effect it had on my skating. The same with the stock MLX tongue. Those elements have changed iteratively over the last 10 years, but they still seem to resemble the ones I have in their basic properties and they're properties that don't align with my preferences: insoles too spongey and tongues too stiff. Luckily, they're rather easily changed and the problems solved, if one knows where to look.

Most of the greatest skaters since the 90's have worn the "7K" style shin, and McD's one of them. It's the classic Jofa shin without the Hyper-X feature. It looks like it dates back to '81 or '82, with some tweaks coming in the following years. It's been a relatively stable piece since 1990, with minor variations. I'm not sure which version McDavid's got, but it's easy to see it's that lineage from the profile of the shin just below the knee cap. It's a little old (2018) but this picture shows that at that point he might have still been using 7Ks, but you can just see how they have that hd foam upper shin strip where the Hyper-X piece would be. CCM's been tinkering with that area the last few years, but it used to just be 7K or 8K style.

Just a thought, but could the heel in your insole have compressed? I find with squishier insoles that I get a lot of vertical heel play in my boots, especially after some use. Now I use stock Graf insoles with a simple firm foam in my MLX because I hated the gummy insoles they came with for precisely that reason. The firmer insoles don't mess with the feel of the boot nearly as much as the softer ones did.

It's insane that essentially the same shin pad Connor McDavid uses debuted already in the early 80's!

The anecdote about how starts are taught today is illuminating. The combination of inside edge and outside edge pushes makes for a promising start in many situations. I've noticed it's a start that's even used in short track speed skating. There has to be some tested merit to it if athletes whose sole full-time job is to skate fast are using it at the highest level. Here's the most recent example I've come across, watch Erik Gustafsson, #56 for the Flyers: He crosses over the whole way back chasing Sheary and it just doesn't look convincing this is his fastest approach back. I thought the idea with a CAG One radius was the flat middle section was for gliding and pushing, which would maximize the amount of steel on the ice. I've never tried one though, so maybe I'm missing something.

What footbed are you using?

He could stock up like Marleau did on his decade and a half supply of 9k's. Which teams have the fewest in Bauer? I've noticed more and more True and CCM, but it still seems like a Bauer majority from the highlights I've been watching.

Wouldn’t it be easier on a longer profile than a shorter one, relatively? You want to do it on the surplus of your glide length. A longer radius provides more of a platform for doing that at speed. Everyone has their own pref. and comfort zone, but I would select a longer profile for linear crossovers. Without sufficient glide you get caught by the backcheck. That’s how I would put it, yet I see NHLers doing sets of linear crossovers in A-to-B race situations, and it makes zero sense unless they’re that uncomfortable with their forward stride.

FT2, 4 or both?

Warning: slight bend in the thread ahead... @pgeorgan Thanks for posting that. I was going to say, Ovechkin does have some serious linear crossover chops. He really showed them in his rookie season. Then he got a Backstrom on his summer holiday and got to take it a bit easier ever after. (Note: the next few links are all from the same video, but each instance is cued to a spot showing Ovy's linear crossovers). This one with commentary by Robbie Glantz is a little more recent, but it captures his puck carrying ability perfectly, and to make it through the neutral zone into the offensive zone without getting suffocated by defensive positioning usually requires fluid linear crossovers. Is it just me or does he also have a rather short and choppy stride, especially in comparison with McDavid and MacKinnon? The phrase "short stride" is ambiguous because it can refer to a player's normal skating stride not using much ice for the glide-and-push, or it can refer to players with longer strides that deliberately take shorter strides while utilizing a linear crossover attack because it's trickier to defend. Mogilny is the perfect example. He has the longest stride I've ever seen, but he was also a master of the linear crossover attack using abbreviated strides. I get what a linear crossover is. I'm just wondering, what is it people think they accomplish or should be used for? Because there's a lot of ambiguity in how they are discussed and some of the ideas I've come across just don't make sense. LCs are so revered they almost seem to usurp the forward stride as a necessary component in hockey ability, as though being able to skate well in a straight line isn't necessary. But I don't see how you can have good linear crossovers or execute them effectively if you don't have an above average forward stride to begin with.

Absolutely. But it's hard to say without knowing how he thinks. Maybe it was just a bad memory he wanted to erase, i.e. weak superstition. The OG JetSpeed graphic is just better, too. The only way to improve on it is to go back to the RBZ. That skate looked really sweet.

Last time he allowed them to mess with the graphic of his skates:

Any particular voices you recommend? (Seen some of the PEP stuff and it seems quite fluffy; promotional propaganda.) "Not short strides...others...have much longer traditional stride(s)." I still don't quite get what you're saying.

Do McDavid and MacKinnon have short strides? What muscle groups are they activating? Are they skating differently than Niedermayer or Gartner did? Curious if there are any videos or descriptive posts you can point to for illuminating this.

Interested customers might be wary of it as well. Participation is impossible if the process is opaque. It's not a very sympathetic view of others.

@mtn Do you still have the original footbeds from the 7700? Some pictures would be nice? How much lower cut are they than the JetSpeeds? Could you measure inside the boot to the top? Sorry for the questions, I'm just curious.

I found this comment from Dr. Bracko in the linked video: "Hi Nathan, thanks very much for your interest in my video. I understand you to say you that you think someone who has full extension of the hip and flexion-extension of the shoulders/arms is a faster skater. If you consider that we've know since 1975 that faster skaters have wider strides (hip abduction, not hip extension), they don't fully extend their knees during full speed skating, and that they have to abduct-adduct their shoulders/arms (Newton's 2nd law of physics). . . then it's easy to understand how fast players skate. Mike Bracko" I'm new to Bracko's work. What do people here think of this?

When I saw some P92 L5s a few years back, they were still higher than the P88. Definitely lower than the P92 L6, but not as low as I expected when considering it as a "5."

@mtn Can you post pictures of the inside of the boots, looking at both heels?

What’s the connection with Oates? McDavid keeps going back to his IginlaJrMod pattern, and with good reason. He looked like he was playing a league down against the Canadiens last night, weaving through them like drifting pylons.

Do you still have any of your son's previous shoulder pads that he may have grown out of? Or just a pair that you're not using anymore? You could remove the chest or back pieces and stitch them to his current pads. Failing that, check for used pairs in decent shape. With a little handiwork or service from a skate shop (or cobbler if that's not an option) you could have extra protection at little cost.

For those who want to keep their loops cut, what about adding some padding to the thumb pouch? It wouldn't help with the hyperextension risks, but it would minimize damage from impacts.

P92 is a heel/mid curve. It opens at the toe but the curve itself is at its slowest rate of change from the middle of the blade to the toe. Which Easton Sakic are you thinking of because I can’t recall any that resemble a P88?

I'm not entirely sure how the pricing compares, and I know price can be a sensitive issue, but for the amount of skating it sounds you do, you would be best to invest in a higher end boot. Definitely finding the right fit will help, whether it's Graf or another brand, but I would avoid the lower end Graf boots, as my experience is they have had issues with drastic quality drop off below the top of the line. As it sounds like your foot is a bit deeper than ideal for the PeakSpeed line, you might want to look elsewhere. The RibCor line has similar plush fit qualities and even though they're represented as CCM's low profile boot a lot of people experience them to be very deep. That might be worth a shot. True TF9s (about the same price as Graf 755s from a quick online search) might not be deep enough, but with their wrap and support, you might be able to fit into them comfortably. Their toe box is very anatomical, which sounds like it could be a start in relieving some of the comfort issues you've had in the past. I'm not 100% sure about the new True TF shells, but the fully custom ones were moldable on the arch as well as the quarters, so if your arch is an issue, you could potentially address that. The most important point here, I think, is how unique everyone's feet are. Just because I have a historical penchant for Graf and now True skates, doesn't mean they're necessarily right for you, or anyone at random for that matter. Grafs used to be go to skates for refs, but other companies have learned a lot of the tricks that put Graf ahead in the 90's and Graf hasn't done the same quick enough in keeping up with market trends. As much as you use your skates and you probably make some income even on your time spent on the ice, I would definitely prioritize a boot that's the right fit and going to withstand the intense use you're subjecting them to. One way to get around being so far from many shops could be to get your feet scanned, so you have an idea of how they compare to what fits are offered at retail currently. Then maybe order several skates that best fit that description and return the ones that don't work. It's best to start fresh, with an open mind, as it sounds like you're still hunting for your go to skate make and model. Don't limit yourself by what you think you might need, as you might easily miss a much better solution if you're too keen on something before giving the search a proper go.