flip12

The graphics on the quarter panels look atrocious. Like budget Adidas indoor football boots.

It's crazy this happens. Isn't it right where the "comfort edge" is?

I have the CCM bubble (FV1) and I can’t ever go back to a cage. If I remember to wipe it off before hitting the ice I have this moment where my brain is doubting whether I have any protection in front of my face. Vision is amazing. Fog has only occurred once on the bench and it was gone in 15 seconds. It’s worth it to me to have perfect visibility and full protection, so if it gets overrun by scratches eventually I’ll certainly buy a new one.

Minimum number of skate lines makes sense for suppliers. I think it’s the wrong fit for users though.

McD hasn’t used short sticks in the past. It’s possibly just the angle of the camera and a rather relaxed moment with him standing almost completely upright.

If the size you tried on was too big, the size a half size down could also be too big. It sounds like a lot of people get good results buying a size that doesn't seem quite big enough until it gets baked. Baking gives a touch more room, and with such a precise fit the goal, that's all you usually need. If you go the Catalyst route, try on all the sizes around where you started: regular and wide, until you find out which ones are definitely too small. Hot spots are usually eliminated by baking True boots and can be spot treated if still present after baking.

Looks like McDavid's back in his trusty old OG JetSpeed build, dressed up to appear ASVish: Boot pattern looks like before, can also see foxing and hints of a separate outsole. He's (probably) never leaving that build for good.

It's still a little confusing, because they try hard to map the old fits to the new ones, for obvious reasons. It doesn't always work. John Davidson, Bauer's skate guru calls fit 1 "very very similar to a Vapor D width skate." This one has some visuals of the dataset and how the fit system roughly maps to it. It's interesting to me how they decide to show the borders between the three fits (2:05) as discrete lines, as though right around the line a particular foot is clearly meant for fit 1, but just nudged a little bit in proportions and it's destined for fit 2. A spray painted fuzzy border seems more appropriate, but maybe not as confidently convincing, as nuance isn't typically welcome in the mainstream of anything. Another interesting visual would have been plotting the actual lasts themselves. They should be representable as distinct points in that scatter plot, and then we could actually see how "very very similar" they actually are. Funnily enough, that concrete comparison isn't readily discovered. Since this is a True thread, it's nice to think about how these relate: True comes along with their highly adaptive molding technology, Bauer's adapts not by improving their skates' moldability but instead by creating more bins (3 instead of 2 per line) to fit as many feet as possible. True, on the other hand, has that nice moldability, and is tuning the feel of their skates, but it's not user-friendly. The struggles recently mentioned by @bl4 and @Hills in his video review remind me of my process with two pairs (first too big, then the right size) of MLX skates. I've tried a lot, and finally have come close to a very hacked solution. Most people are not patient enough to do that experimentation, and there isn't much information to help them anyway. When dropping several hundred dollars on a purchase that has a small regret window, it's no wonder people don't want to try that much. The future of skates seems really promising, but for now, there are some apparent growing pains. I have a feeling they'll be over soon, though.

Fits 1, 2, and 3 are completely new lasts. Vapor lasts from before don’t correspond to the new system. There have been quite a few people on here posting that they don’t fit any of the new fit numbers as well as they did their old Vapors. I think some confusion comes from Bauer’s old 3 fits—Vapor, Supreme, and Nexus, and a lot of people thinking those were now renamed 1, 2, and 3. That would allow you to get a Vapor built on a Supreme or Nexus last, or a Supreme built on a Vapor or Nexus last, as well as their ‘native’ lasts, but instead Bauer created 3 new fits to best suit the data they collected with their 3D foot scanning app.

He wore AS-Vs that looked a lot closer to the retail version than anything he’s previously worn in competition; last year around all-star weekend. Maybe he’s giving that route another try.

@bl4 do you have any other tongues you could try in your boots? Trying a thicker classic felt tongue could help, as long as it's not too stiff (usually tendon protection in tongues tends to be quite stiff). You might be able to get better lace tension and heel lock without having to crank down on the tongue too much. I don't know the Cat tongue yet, but tongues with too much stiffness can impede proper forward flexion when cranked down with tight lacing.

I see I mistyped in the post you quoted, the Kovalev stick I have doesn't have a plug, it has a Tacki-Mac that weighs about 36g.

I didn't cut it. We're about the same height and he used sticks about 1/2" shorter than my sticks from the 90's-early 2000's. I can measure it tomorrow, but I know offhand it's a 48" shaft and the blade has a longer hosel than retail standard blades did. His pro AK27 shafts that I have are the same length as a retail AK27, just with a different build--boxy shaft shape, tackier grip, and heavier. I only have one other pro standard blade (Easton E28) and it's the same hosel length, so I wonder if that wasn't somewhat the norm for standard pro blades. As a follow up, I've since gotten used to the 425g stick. I can go from either my heavy sticks (650g+) or light sticks (425g is the lightest I have), and while I feel a difference, it doesn't affect my play. My hands are a bit out of whack for dangling at the moment, but I plan on working on it 🙂

Thanks for the pics. They look interesting. Can’t wait to see them in person but that might be a while because the two shops in CPH don’t stock new True stuff. Mostly what I'd like to know is how they compare to other outsoles.

Quoted wrong.

What about the Genetix insole? I've seen it mentioned and tried to look it up on True's site, but its marketing is an afterthought.

What's BLBR? It's nice to have options though, isn't it? 🤠

Chosing money more than anything. I get that making money is the point of running a business, but their strategy looks to have shifted to carving out as much quality as possible to save on cost and charging even more because they think they’re the ‘Apple of hockey.’

#allout

True had a nice spongy felt tongue with very little stiffness at one point. I don’t know what they call(ed) it but it was on the True custom display model skate at the LHS a few years ago—before the railroad stripe detailing on the quarters. I’d go for something like that if possible.

@xfrost11 see if you can find a tongue with little to no stiffness to it. The boots are so stiff that any stiffness in the tongue can become inhibiting to your forward flex. My favourite tongue in my MLX is an 80’s felt, leather, and nylon that isn’t stiff at all. The first time I skated in my MLX with those was an eye-opener.

Also his -^

I feel ya. When it clicks for you, it's hard to make the little adjustments all the time that you can but don't want to have to with another pattern. It really shaves time off of execution, which isn't going to affect our paychecks, but will have an impact on our enjoyment, which is why we still play. You know what you like. I can support that.

@Jbear, I thought you said you like options. Loving an endangered curve puts you at the mercy of who continues to produce it multiplied by who continues to stock it. It’s a matter of what you want to prioritise.

True calls it HCS (heel curve, square toe). A quick search showed IceWarehouse has Catalyst 9x and 7x and even Catalyst standard blades if you’ve got some old shafts lying around.