flip12

I assumed that would go out the window, but the level of polish I expected instead is nowhere to be seen.

He had good chemistry with Panarin at SKA.

The new design looks at least as clunky as the MLX:

I've been watching their stock and they were almost out of the Shifts but recently got a bunch more in. It could be a last push of some stock that was sitting somewhere? I love a lot of the concepts in this boot, though the RPE's have them as well: aggressive forward angle, flexy but reinforced tendon guard, good wrap on the forefoot and extended toecap under the first laces. I'm not sure what size I would need though, and don't really need a new pair of skates yet. It's such a shame Alkali wasn't sold to Warrior instead. They could have been a great addition to the company and a rival on the ice skate market. It was nice having Justin Hoffman's design evolve and such a shame it got abruptly cut off just as it got to the RPD/RPE iteration :/

Are there any online retailers that show them? I'm curious about the pricing of the 68K. Looks like it lines up with the JetSpeed 370 at $300 according to the pricing on a UK retailer I found yesterday. If that's the case, I'm twice as keen on trying these as I was before. It's great what technology you can get for $300 these days. Back in the 90's, that was almost a top of the line skate and it is again, only with a few of the extra bells and whistles and bling excluded.

Bjorkstrand got hunted on a vicious boarding play by Polak, are there other instances where he failed to protect himself? It's not as easy to protect oneself against illegal hits... Another upside on OB you miss is he's a coach's son and he plays like it. It seemed Tortorella was gaga with Bjorkstrand at the end of the season and I think that's why. He makes the right play with and without the puck most of the time. It'll be interesting to see Panarin without Kane. I think Kane boosted him and you think Kane held him back. Interesting :)

I'm curious to see how he'll do out of the shadow of Kane. He created some serious chances for Russia in the World Championship, but that was on the bigger ice surface. He may prove easier to nullify when he's not the 3rd or 4th checking concern. Saad makes perfect sense back in Chicago to replace Hoss's play on both sides of the puck.

MacKinnon was in FT1s for a bit, but for the latest he was in 70Ks at the World Championship. Zucker's also one of the faster skaters in the league and he stuck with VH all year last season.

Totally agree. Unless that area has shown excessive wear, imitating the Bauer Supreme one95 heel cup only detracts from the essence of the VH->True boot. The next iteration could be spot on. But this one is too wishy-washy, lukewarm. Edit: And the new tongue looks cheap by comparison to the old ones.

They look clunkier than before.

Love the look of oughties sticks and shafts.

You make a great point about the certification boards in your second paragraph. It seems, though, there is a key difference in the case of the VT study, which is, all of the helmets they're testing have been approved by those boards. What VT is looking at, then, is "How do these already certified helmets actually perform in terms of damping collision forces similar to those incurred by hockey players in full contact leagues." It's an interesting question to study, and while you're right that it's not the best for companies to develop with, since they're subjected to the lab's analysis after releasing a new helmet, it is interesting to see that high price and high tech in a helmet doesn't perfectly correlate to a high collision damping score. Without having an independent assessment of how these different designs perform, vendors could just increase the price and the tech at will. (Now, though, if they're smart they'll probably just reverse-engineer the best results and package them in the most expensive helmet in their lineup to use VT's ratings to their advantage...and sure enough, the first ≈$300 helmet has the VT lab's current hight score.) This reminds me of when the Bauer 5000 helmet with the stiffer styrofoam-looking padding came out, and how that was supposed to be provide superior concussion protection, but didn't it turn out to be worse than the traditional VN foam in the run-of-the-mill helmets of the late '90's? Sure, helmets won't prevent concussions from whiplash. But that raises the question, what percentage of hockey head injuries are from whiplash? What would the potential benefits be to players if they had optimal collision damping in concussion prone incidents? Is there a difference of degree in concussion symptoms and could the effects of concussions be minimized by better understanding how to soften the blows hockey subjects players to? Almost all that gets discussed with the VT study is concussions, but are there potential benefits for the long-term brain health of hockey players by minimizing the brunt of the repetitive sub-concussive impacts that are more common and get less notice? In spite of helmets being mainly engineered to prevent skull fractures, the list of NHL players who've frantically tried the latest-and-greatest helmet in hopes to avoid an early retirement due to concussions shows there is a yearning for better brain protection. How to achieve that is tough to say, as concussions and brain health are areas of growing knowledge. That is to say, whether it can even be achieved, it is too early to tell. I'm no concussion expert, but these are just bits I've absorbed along the way in trying to keep somewhat informed. It could be drastically off-base. But I appreciate what the VT lab is asking.

But the "independent" here, do you see that as a bad thing? Would a dependent test rating be better in your view?

What's good about that is, they're not impervious to critique. I'd be surprised if they haven't considered the headform issue. I haven't read through their literature end to end so it could be buried in there. My view--sure it's a flawed study, perhaps more so than would be ideal at this point (everything and every study is going to have its limitations), but it's a step in the right direction by a team that shows it's open to improvements. Doubtless, the peer-review process has raised some issues as well. I wish journals published the peer-review referees' comments as an appendix to each article. It would raise a lot of the major points that may be missed by curious readers who aren't expert in the particular topic, as well as indicate the degree to which the debate around an issue points in various directions of concern.

They could easily fix this, gathering head shape data and creating 5 - 10 or 30 - 40 different dummies to conform to a range of headshapes to fit what people actually have and then show the scores for the various headshapes. You'd be able to see an average as well as which ones score best for the head shape you have. But they do though! It's clearly stated already in the abstract of their article for the hockey helmet study: "Injury risk is determined using a multivariate injury risk function that incorporates both linear and rotational head acceleration measurements." (source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10439-015-1278-7)

How's the new tendon guard attached inside? Is it still the same two piece junction?

All-Star gloves. The eye is another icon he has on his gloves.

If there's a comments box as part of the order, maybe just pick any old shaft finish and then write that you just picked a shaft finish because it was a required option, but that it obviously should be disregarded, as you're not ordering any shafts.

Graf Canada wasn't domestic though.

My guess would be to try a longer profile, as the rotation in the holder seems to simulate a shorter rocker for those "smoother" / "easier" turns.

Marsblade's released some videos showing off/testing his new ice holder. I've linked just the one, but you'll easily find the others if you follow it into the YouTube. Some initial questions: "Nice soft turns" makes me think of the Custom+, how will this be different? How would it hold up under the wear and tear from game conditions? How does it perform in other aspects? Great if turns feel nice, but how is it to sprint in, pivot in, shoot, etc?

How do you lace your Grafs? I've noticed a lot of people try to crank on the top eyelet to get it to snug up to the ankle, but the secret to a lot of Graf's classic skates was to keep the top eyelet wider and stiffer with added structure, to allow full ankle rotation. On top of the extra stiffness they had a little extra space between the second from the top eyelet to the top, essentially enforcing the skip-the-2nd-eyelet lacing pattern (used by Crosby for example). It's a different approach, but it can feel amazing once you get used to it. For me it helped to focus on snugging up the boot in the forefoot and above the talus, roughly around the third eyelet from the top. The rest was less essential than those two areas. Just something to try that might help. I've thought about the difference between Graf's eyelet pattern and low cut and the 70K. I'd like to try the 70K before tinkering with that, but after getting used to the Graf pattern, everything else feels incredibly restrictive.

I'm just puzzled about some of the features, maybe @BelangerJS can illuminate some of the obscure points? What's the difference between the "injection boot" base for the 66K and 64K versus the 70K and 68K? Injection makes me think of injection molded plastic. Is it that? Are the 70K and 68K a layup composite boot whereas the 66K and 64K are injection molded plastic, or is that completely the wrong line of thought? Also, what exactly is special about the ankle pads? How do they differ from those in the JetSpeed and Tacks? The review from thehockeyshop says it's a different foam that's been pro exclusive without mentioning anything else about what makes it special.

Do you have a link for that? I'd love to see that video as he was incredibly positive about his VH. With a quick search I couldn't find it.

They look a lot nicer than CCM's other skates. Did the facing pattern change too? I thought the __K-series had been more L-shaped until now. These look very C-shaped. They just didn't mention a change in the video.