flip12

and for their own bottom line.

P28 is a nice passing blade if you sort out where the heel to middle release point is. Usually it’s possible to launch a saucer pass heel to toe, especially with the degree of loft on blades like the Drury. I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason for there being so much loft on the blade. The P28 still has vestiges of that origin: it’s an open heel curve until it turns into a mid-toe curve. The rub lies in the aggressiveness of the rocker on the toe. This means you can’t wait until the puck is at the toe to launch a sweeping saucer pass or shot starting from the heel. You have to release before you reach the toe, just beyond the middle of the blade. Before you go trying different curves, see if you can expand what you’re comfortable with using the P28 for. Just practice the saucer standing still, super soft motions, almost no pressure on the stick. Do a few sets of five or six pucks in a row and see if you can feel where the puck wants to release. I did this when I was struggling with my Ville Leino SE16. It’s basically a Kovalevized P28: lower lie, max-length blade, but similar idea. Once I found the sweeping sweet spot I didn’t have fluttering saucer passes anymore. My shooting also improved, so I could finally shoot from either the heel or the toe, no problem.

1:

Yeah, you've stated so much, but only vaguely. Can you be more specific? What is the downfall of their approach or their setup? How are their head forms substandard? Did they make their own head forms or did they use ones typically used for other sports? I'm actually not clear on what you're saying which is why I keep hoping you'll elaborate.

You keep saying that, but never provide any substantial critique of their system. It seems most of your beef with them is that they’re doing things differently.

Warrior’s famous for measuring their lies a little differently, leading their numbers to be generally 1 lower than other companies. The lie isn’t actually different. Likewise, P28’s usually are higher than a 5 by the old Easton scale, lining up with the Drury which was a 5.5 on that scale. This leads to absurdities like CCM calling the P28 a lie 5 when it’s actually higher than their P46 which they called a 5.5. Lie is important, but unfortunately you can’t trust the numbers patterns are assigned. You have to do the comparisons side by side with the actual sticks.

Wouldn't a thinner tongue be more conducive to lace bite?

Did you rebake the skates after the foam compressed?

I’ve wondered if manufacturers have also trended towards lighter or thinner HDPE for the shells too. That way could the pads appear like improved (MORE FEATURES!!! NEW FOAMS!!!) versions of basically the same design we’ve had since Jagr was drafted, while cutting down on the grams. Not that there’s much to complain about the archetypal pads developed by Jofa, it just seems the newer editions are longer on marketing and shorter on performance.

Shane Doan made your shin?

Yes, that’s exactly the machine I was thinking of. I don’t know what it’s called but it’s in all of the hockey skate factory videos I’ve seen with the exception of VH. It might not be as apparent that the skate is custom molded for that process unless the order is for someone with a heel that deviates from the norm by quite a bit.

Maybe they're just molding the heel and lower foot area? That's a common heat molding step in the factory. The standard approach would be to heat mold it to a standard footlast. In this case, they'd be doing it to a custom one. But this isn't the lace-em-up heating that affects the facing. It's the one that presses the boot down around a mold to give it an anatomical shape. The top form would still come after the customer receives them. Look at some hockey skate factory videos and you'll see the process I'm talking about. My guess is that's the forming that's being done, and it would be beneficial to have this rather than the skate take its initial and much more permanent shape from a custom last rather than a standard one, probably more so for some than others.

Can you post some face and curve pictures of the Vatrano on it’s own?

Maybe he likes a little more room to move over the instep. Before switching to Nexus he wore both Vapor and Supreme, both with the deepest creases I’ve seen since P. Bure.

Some other potentially more relevant videos are available:

I think composite skates’ thermoformability has a lot to do with the whole sandwich that makes up the boot. At least with the speed skate style boots like True where the exposed composite shell resists thermoforming much more than the covered parts, perhaps there’s something about the shell under the covers not curing completely, allowing it to be activated to a pliable state at the right temperature.

Football boots are rainbow colored. They don’t face the same treatment as hockey boots though. Most of my shoes actually are mostly black. My style is more focused on the form pattern and material palette, letting smart decisions in those categories rising to the surface rather than dressing up an otherwise shoddy pair of footwear. I find it’s often the case that where there’s primary focus on the cosmetic, the rest of the aesthetic is compromised. If the use intention is purely that an object be looked at, then that’s fine. As soon as other concerns come into play, such as fit and longevity are concerns in picking a hockey boot, then my aesthetic considerations will take a fuller input into account: touch becomes primary and smell is also important, especially if it’s a used skate.

What would you like to see instead?

Some recent stills of Kuch's (same star) new boots. The more I see them, the more they look like the outsole really has crept up onto the quarters, cupping the midfoot and heel. My thought is, this is Bauer's initial response to the VH/True and CCM monocoque boots. They look like Bauer's interpretation of the Mako is finally here. Even some of the lines of the Mako are still there: of course there's the newer, sleeker toe cap that's already known from the Vapor lineup, but the wrap on Kuch's boots is reminiscent of the Makos (though with more negative space involved in this instance) as is the thick seam where the exposed composite met the plastic wrapping the Makos. In this case it looks like an inversion of its predecessor: instead of the shell of the boot going from exposed to covered as it did on the Mako, the shell of this stealthpreme still appears to be a "two-piece" boot construction with the composite quarters married to the outsole so that the prominent seam marks the end of the outsole's incursion up the rearward sides of the boot. This makes sense. If it's a viable design, it could allow Bauer to reap similar perceived benefits of the monocoque construction ("perceived" because there are plenty of both yay and naysayers) while minimizing the degree to which they have to alter their construction methods. It can't really be a question of developing their own monocoque boot from scratch, since they own the IP for the Mako. This looks to be Bauer staying true to their ways, which still has them in a fairly comfortable lead in market share if I'm not mistaken, while attempting to fend off competition that has eaten somewhat into that market share of late. My experience in a monocoque boot (MLX) has made me think the real performance trick has to do with its minimizing torsion which I can easily picture being exaggerated between the various parts that make up the traditional hockey boot twisting independently, as they are subjected to opposing forces in acceleration maneuvers and therefore pull away from each other somewhat. A monocoque boot would unify that system into one part that still probably twists, but as one thing rather than several, which makes for a more much more immediate response. I have no experimental or theoretical physical model showing that this is indeed what happens, it's just what it feels like going from other boots to MLX, and how I picture that feeling when I draw it in my head. There's probably a deal more redundant material in that heel/quarter/outsole sandwich than there would be on Bauer's skates with traditional outsoles which run roughly parallel to the ground (we're a long way removed from OD1N's "LET'S DELETE THE OUTSOLE!!!"), but if this can mimic that reduced interstitial torsion of a monocoque OPB it could be well worth it.

Jakucek still has Reebok skates too...

You mean with a rounder toe shape or more rocker under the toe?

I have that feeling in some of my insoles. Boots’ lining will pack in over time, but insoles can do the same, especially in the heel first. I’m not familiar with SpeedPlates though, so I’m not sure how spongy they are. Spongier insoles seem to pack in more than firmer ones. If it is the insole it should be a difference you could observe by comparing your used SpeedPlates to new ones.

It’s a little hard to see from those shots, but does the outsole look different? It looks like it cups the bottom of the foot, coming up the quarters a bit.

If you zoom in you can see there’s next to no cosmetic package to the skate. It’s the nicest looking Bauer since the one95.

I like it. The 90s Tacks heel wedge was pretty loud for its day, though not unheard of—see Micron. This hearkens back to that in a version suitable to today, if a bit derivative of Alkali’s tasteful branding. Not that this is by any means CCM’s first shameless borrowing from Alkali’s design touches. I prefer a huge wordmark over random slashes and sloshes sublimated into the quarters, ‘just because.’