flip12

I also wonder if the great fit doesn't impress pros as much since they essentially have custom skates in every way possible, even with lasts made around their feet. I agree with Krev on the short season affecting it too. Even though a lot of pros skate with skates stiffer than they're fully harnessing (with loosely laced upper eyelets, eyelets fully skipped, etc.), it's probably far too drastic a skating difference to give it a try. Every game I watch the commentators note how there's "literally no time to practice."

And Martinek.

I may have been careless to throw bandy in there without saying why. It looks like hockey skates/skating are headed in that (bandy) direction: lower cut, greater range of motion. If this contributed to derailing the focus, I apologize.

Byfuglien's been in the new CCM RBZ's for the past few games, with classic 90's tongues on them. But Radek Martinek and Andrew MacDonald are wearing Makos.

He usually did a slim ring of tape around the tendon guard. Lemieux did too, then Sakic. A lot of skaters seemed to imitate Gretzky's style. Lace wrap I don't recall seeing on him. Yeah, he looks a bit confused and as if he's suffering slight indigestion, funny pic. Can I count this Gretz' opinion as a win for Lemieux?

From the Wikipedia page on Micron 10-90's: "The design of the boots made the skater lean forward slightly when skating which meant they were ideal skates for balancing weight when skating backwards. This proved popular with ice hockey players that played defence." Bauer bought out Micron a year or so before I started playing ice hockey, and I only saw them once on a player in person, but perhaps the forward pitch could be a pleasant surprise for you. That, and if you're one of those who ends up liking the fit of the Mako so much, I imagine you'd feel more comfortable skating backwards, whether or not you keep the pitch you're used to now, or wind up changing to something more forward leaning. Just don't let that be a deal breaker when, as Chadd points out, you can adjust the pitch independently.

I wish I had known that right away when I started playing. Graf 703's fit me much better than anything else I've tried. I have flipper feet, where the instep is so shallow that most of my shoes look zipped up rather than tied with laces because the average volume for my foot length must be quite a bit higher. From the sound of the shallowness of the MLX boots, I may have really liked those.

I feel the same. Skating in Graf after Bauer was an fit and performance improvement for me that I didn't know was possible. Skating in the 703 instead of the 705 was a further improvement. I loved the Grafs especially for their decreased stiffness and lower cut. They worked so much better. The Mako concept is what I hoped for to improve even on my feel in 703's. The only thing is, I like to tape the tendon guard for tighter turning, and I'm not sure how this would work out on Mako's wishboney tendon piece, it seems like it might even be an improvement over other tendon guard shapes.

I thought so too, but they've grown on me considerably. I'd probably end up blacking out that Home Depot Orange. It seems the trend is for hot colors, and I can guess why that is from a marketing standpoint, but I'd love a classic blue or something, like on the One90. I'll gladly try them out if I can afford to.

My opinion, the white looks bad with the g-series side panel gray. I've never seen a custom graf skate that didn't make me want to throw up. Nothing personal. Glad you like them.

What's the stock radius on Graf Cobras? I had a size 11 705 and liked the longer radius.

bauer 5000 (I think) helmet rusty jofa cage easton ultralite shoulders koho4440 elbows mission L-1 gloves -- 14" takla 4000 (?) air breezers or pants bauer vapor 6 shins -- 17" mission s400 skates (11), just divorced my graf 705s (11) because they were too stiff easton ultralite shaft, curved (and cracked) ultragraphite modano blade mission M-1 hatcher that I plan to cut and use a warrior dolomite smyth blade in P.S. go purple pride district five!