flip12

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.’

Here's where what @SkateWorksPNW and @stick9 has to be addressed, as there really are a lot of variables you've mentioned. If your feet feel better in the Supremes than they did in the Nexus, you could be benefitting from that, unrelated to the pitch change. When you had SuperFeet in your Nexus, did it feel better than the original insoles the skates came with but still not good enough, hence the switch to Supreme? What kind of pain has gone away in the Supremes compared to your previous Nexus skates? Supreme and Nexus are supposed to have a bit of a different approach to fit and feel. It could be you're benefitting from the skate family change. Maybe the material make-up of the S180 suits you better than the N2900. The S180 is the higher end skate of the two, right? If you provide more details about the good and bad in the comparisons you're making, it'll be easier for the other active members in this thread, who are more knowledgeable than I am on these questions, to give you detailed answers.

In his second post he mentioned the profile: I thought he meant it was profiled to 13' when he still had N2900s and then swapped that runner into the holder on his Supreme 180s. It sounds like @stick9 has nailed a significant factor: pitching +1 on Supremes with stock insoles bringing you closer to the effective pitch of the N2900s, which it sounded like you were happy with. So you lost some pitch going to Supremes without SuperFeet and pitching it +1 got you back towards what you were previously on.

It looks like Crosby’s got the traditional more L-shaped < 70K cut compared to the C-shaped 70K cut. The eyelets over his instep are almost punched in the jewel. That and slightly less spacing between the eyelets seem to make way for the extra eyelet on his pair. They don’t look to be especially low cut at the top. Good eye @BenBreeg, the shot of Sid in @SkateWorksPNW‘s link show only 10 eyelets, where the 10th is skipped and the 11th is presumably hidden by the bottom of Sid’s shins.

He’s skipping the second eyelet in all of those. If you catch him with his leg flexed you risk missing the top eyelet because his shin slides down and conceals it. This happens quite a bit because he’s quite a deep skater. If you look at the right time you can see both: skipped eyelet with top laced eyelet concealed and top eyelet visible on the other skate. Just some examples from the ‘10-‘11 Winter Classic since it’s a precisely identifiable event in your example set:

Really? When did Crosby skip the top eyelet? I’ve only seen where he laces to the top, skipping the second eyelet almost always since his rookie season and lacing the second eyelet as well in juniors. Datsyuk stuck with E Pros too.

Pros have long had much higher granularity than that. Parts can be swapped in and out to achieve the right feel. Sometimes that could mean dialing the stiffness of a part back...or up. To simply grab a lower tier product could work in theory, but that idea obscures the fact that there’s so much more going on than meets the eye in a custom boot. Companies want you to think pros are using the latest and greatest, but just as with sticks, it’s not really possible to tell what specs a player has until you get properly identifying information, which isn’t necessarily the retail wrapper you see on sticks or skates. It’s not a question as much of what would be easier to supply a player, because then custom skates wouldn’t exist. But players have mismatched size feet or a desire for more stiffness in one area and less in another. If CCM didn’t fulfill those wishes, Bauer would, etc., etc. Another Fedorov anecdote: his Air Accel Elite styled Nikes were different than everyone else’s. They were cut one eyelet lower and had a Graf 703 / 501 shaped tendon guard instead of the Daoust shaped one that was standard on that line. Mogilny similarly had shorter cut Vapor 8s and XXs with varying top eyelet spacing / placement. Not on all of his pairs but some.

McDavid’s lower leg strength and activation is so far superior to anyone else currently playing the only other footage I’ve seen of similar unparalleled power is watching Bobby Orr (on YouTube...Orr’s before my time). McD also gets away with not bending his knees as much as guys with locked ankles—like Cam Atkinson for example. Connor does get extremely low sometimes, but he’ll fly through the entire opposing team in what looks like a ridiculously relaxed posture. Modano skated like that too, just with less zip and zing.

I think True boot height is more in line with Graf and Mako, so roughly 1 eyelet lower than Bauer and CCM. It won’t be as many eyelets as the taller boots as there simply isn’t space for it.

Marleau’s 9K’s are still down-spec’d a bit from how a stock 9K was. He stuck with TPU outsoles like there were on his previous CCM skates. His eyelet pattern is also funky, omitting eyelets 2 and 4 from the top which also promotes forward flex. Fedorov and Bure also rocked TPU outsoled boots after composite was introduced: Bure on his early Vapor 8s and Fedorov on G3s. McDavid’s stiffness spec apparently matches the third tier offerring in the Tacks lineup: https://www.icewarehouse.com/CCM_Tacks_9080/descpage-CT8S.html If he had wanted stiffer when JetSpeeds came out he almost certainly could have had that spec.

Back then tendon guards started out stiff and broke in, allowing at least some of that toe flick, some brands more than others. My CCM 652 Pump Tacks felt pretty much the same in tendon guard ROM as my MLX do. Stamm’s instructor was out for maximum toe flick. With heel lock you can get some but with heel lift you can get even more. Stamm’s teaching made a lot of sense for me getting a hockey boot to work more naturally before I made the jump to Graf. My 705s let me fly like I never knew I could. They had both heel lock and incredible range of motion.

Both Marleau and McDavid compete on less stiff than current top-end stiffness. Looking backwards in skate history there have always been skaters who exhibit remarkable speed and agility. Look at the dynamic skating of Valeri Kharlamov and it’s clear boots don’t have to be stiff for players to do what they need to do on the ice.

What I appreciate about this thread is its fundamental questioning of the current state of hockey skates. I’m in the camp with those that would say they’re overstructured. There’s a lot of nuance in all of the facets that go into skating so it’s a worthwhile discussion. Regarding heel lock, I somewhat recall being taught at Laura Stamm Power Skating that you get more stride length if you get heel lift. That way you have even more toe flick. The instructors all skated 1-3 eyelets unlaced and this was back when O.G. Bauer Vapor 8s just came out.

If you go back in the archives on here, the connection is clear: MLX is what they renamed DASC, an acronym of 4 names where D is David Cruikshank and S Scott Van Horne after Mario Lemieux came on as an investor. I don’t know who the other two are. If you rewatch the Making of the Mako videos, Cruikshank shows off his SVH made prototype. I’m pretty sure he mentions SVH as the boot maker there. But SVH was the builder behind MLX/DASC as far as I know. Why VH Footwear didn’t have a non-compete with the Mako might come down to the different companies or the subtle differences between the Mako and VH, I’m not sure. Before all that Van Horne was also involved with Kor. @JunkyardAthletic knows the details much better.