flip12

In shoes and skates, the toe box is usually the issue, especially on my right foot. My big toes are the longest and I've had some otherwise great fitting footwear that cause almost unbearable pain on my right big toe because I'm stubborn enough to wear the shoes in. With Graf, I can comfortably fit a 10 if it's a wider forefoot skate, like the 501 or 701, but the 703 is just a tiny bit too compressed at the outer tip of my right big toe. With the 9.5 TF7s I found I could feather the cap, but my toes didn't feel compressed by either the length or the width of the toe box. It's a roomy design without feeling cavernous, maybe because the TF7 has that thicker tongue and I didn't try on TF9s.

Buddy's wearing 1.5 bigger now, sounds like. Maybe the X and Y were reversed at scan time?

TF9 8 R or W? What size and make Grafs was buddy wearing?

Possibly different balance points / swing weights. I used to be superstitiously insistent on a certain blade lie and stick length combo. Turns out it’s feeling in tune with the swing weight that makes or breaks a stick’s play for me. If other parameters are the same but balance is different, they’ll feel like two very different sticks. It other parameters are different but the balance is what your body expects, those other parameters don’t matter. That’s how it is for me at least.

I just tried on some TF7s. My MLX are a size 10 and my right foot, which is slightly longer than my left, touches the toe box with slightly more than feathering pressure. I tried the TF7s in 10.0R and was swimming and felt like my arch didn’t line up with that of the boots; 9.5W felt like I could sharpen them and go without any baking, though the heel felt a bit relaxed; 9.5R felt on the money: snug, with even pressure everywhere except across the forefoot—there it was a touch too tight, but I’m confident a bake would fix that—toes were feathering the toe cap more ideally than they do in my 10 MLX. Now I wish I had tried 9.0W + R, but that’ll have to be for another day.

What little things need to be adjusted? Can you give some examples?

It's probably not as bad now that their toe caps are plastic, but on my MLX, my right big toe sits with a firm brush against the toe cap and I think I got mild frostbite every time I wore thin socks in those boots. I'd love a little foam there. I could add some myself, but haven't gotten around to it.

Air 90 had that great flex hinge instead of the notch. I still felt like my ankle was being grabbed by a bony ghost. But if a skate’s gonna go that high, that’s the way to do it.

A little too high cut, but the best boot cut that high, probably. Insanely heavy too, compared to older Graf 703s. For my taste.

I’m confused by this description. The shell on the TF models covers 90% of the area of the boot. It runs under the surface for a lot of it but it doesn’t stop around the midfoot, where your problem area is.

Now I’ve heard different.

I’ve always heard that Audis are just budget BMW copies.

Can you post those instructions?

According to IW a size 9 TF7 and Ultrasonic weighs 949g, TF9 945g and AS3 Pro 921g. Interesting.

It can be hard to see past one's favorite team, but it's more of a big picture phenomenon. There are other guys like Mark Stuart or Ryan Murray who were in SVH's skates long before True and then went back to Bauer. That makes sense to me because both Bauer and CCM have been playing against SVH since his boots first hit the NHL, and that war is only on more than ever right now. I think tradition says a lot about why players gravitate back towards something more familiar to what they grew up with. What's more interesting for the discussion isn't who's been in True skates, for how long, and what they're on now, but rather what the population statistics are. Is True's market share growing, regardless of who's in the skates? I'd wager that it is. Eventually, there's likely to be an outlier on the good side of the distribution wearing their skates that will have greater pull in kids' brand estimation, which should lead to more sales at retail. If they can get in where Graf was before the one90, it could tilt the entire board. Before 2006, Graf had a lot of the biggest names in their boots. Then Bauer officially killed them, even stole Fedorov back to Nike! If a handful of the game's greatest players are in True boots, and they cost what Grafs did 20 years ago, you could see significant sales to say the least. Perhaps not majority market share, but potentially good enough to make a solid business case. I don't think this stops at skates either, by the way, but that's just me.

My guess is it’s a longer view thing, 2 seasons down the road versus pushing every button right now. Word of mouth on Trues here has been excellent. A surprising amount of beer leaguers I talk to wanted True customs but couldn’t justify the price. That all changes now. And that’s potentially another layer of broader word of mouth. True’s also got some high end prospects in their skates. Once they have a few of the game’s most prominent players, maybe in a few more years, that cements the market incursion. That’s my view of their strategy.

Woah! How much hockey is there in Iceland? That’s unfortunate about IW not helping, and True not answering if their dealer’s unwilling and/or unable to help. We have a pretty solid True dealer in Copenhagen, REX Hockey. Though you might be better off financially contacting a Swedish dealer. That could spare you import duties if you got help from someone in North America. Since the tongue just Velcro’s out, could you try and just remove the tongues and pop in some from another pair of skates? That’s what I’ve done in mine. I usually just slide them in and let the laces hold them in place. It could be a quick check to see if that’s a help at all.

@Thorisson#3, did you purchase them through a retailer? With True customs that was the first line of trouble shooting. It’s probably even more difficult for True to address consumers individually now that they’re growing. I got a little lace bite in my MLX, but over the middle eyelets. It was only with the stock tongue which had a pretty stiff thermoplastic piece just beneath the outer pleather (probably pleather). That was the only section I was cranking down on the eyelets. Now that I’ve swapped for the softest Graf tongue I have, it’s no problem, paradoxically.

Are you getting lace bite at the top? A lot of people find they don’t need to lace Trues with much if any tension. The molding more than snugs the boot up sufficiently for performance.

Especially when Warrior’s parent is shoes first and foremost.

Is there any connection between Verbero’s boots and the Easton S15/17? Verberos look like the same pattern just redressed.

That’s a good point. I’ve never gotten to try a one90; still keeping my eyes out for a pair in the right size.

No. Bauer scoffed at that “innovation,” pointing out they had had that feature going back to the one90. Back in the day all skates had it. https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2013/04/29/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Easton-skate.aspx

Huh, your take on True's construction sounds different than mine. What makes you think the way they build their boots is closer to Bauer's method, fusing a quarter piece to the heel/outsole piece?

Wait, if CCM has one-piece boots doesn’t True as well? I’m curious to see how the TF7 does in the flexible one-piece category.