SolarWind

Evans is all over the place with his lacing it seems, but he def used to tape ankles massively back in the day!

This brought some memories, I went searching and found the exact same skates I learned to skate on back in 80s - гаги: https://youla.ru/moskva/sport-otdyh/zimnie-vidy/konki-ghaghi-5a9140c1f094f38e4d3f49b7 There was some serious shortage of pretty much everything in 80s in USSR, so these skates were passed on around. I still remember complete lack of ankle support and insulation in these! Not only ankles were aching but toes were frozen too LOL Fast forward 40 years: I tested 2 specific moves with different lacing (top eyelet undone, laced all the way up loosely, laced moderately tight). The moves were: jumping side to side (on both feet and one foot) and running crossovers. Most stability and predictability when landing hard on the edge in a jump was with the moderately tight lacing. maybe I’m just getting old and my history of ankle sprains is catching up to me, but I’m just hoping for some “marvels of modern technology” to make it easier for me 🙂

I don’t recall speed skaters being able to rapidly change direction or take contact LOL there is no argument that ankle mobility is extremely beneficial for skating, and especially when skating leisurely it’s good to have a lot of ankle mobility. where it seems to become a hinderance is for jumps including running crossovers, or contact. There is a reason figure skates are so tight around the ankle since landing a triple axel on a rolled ankle would be a recipe for an immediate disaster. So I suggest we look past the book knowledge and look into practical applicability of this specifically to hockey.

There is a couple of things getting mixed up: forward flexion - definitely 'the more the merrier', no argument there. I used to skate with top eyelet undone on and off for the past 10 years, depending on the skate I was in. And even when I laced all the way up I made sure it doesn't feel like ski boot. There seems to be a clear correlation between forward and lateral flexion, but it's dependent on the boot design, stiffness etc so I'm not going there. Nor questioning the necessity of the forward flex. ankle flexion & associated lateral flexion, more specifically what is the reasonable range of motion side to side for the ankle before it starts hindering performance - that's what I'm trying to clarify. Just like the forward flex, some ankle flexion is absolutely essential. But intuitively it feels that unlike with the forward flex, there is likely only some side-to side flexion that's helpful before it becomes a hinderance. So I was curious how much side wrap (def no over-wrap in front of the ankle since it'd mess up the forward flex) is good, and at what point does the empty space between the ankle and top of the boot become detrimental? Here's 2 skates side by side with the ankle rolled inwards to the max: https://ibb.co/Y3SvVKm Bauer feels ok, but CCM feels sloppy and not very responsive due to the range of side to side roll it allows. Once again I'm all up for Some ankle roll, there's been numerous studies on the benefits of it, after all it's much quicker to roll the ankle then lean over. Just curious how much is too much if that makes sense.

makes sense. I had the shop bake the retail skates for 7 mins starting in the cold oven, and then tried baking customs for 2 mins in the preheated oven and the latter was by FAR not even close to be as pliable as the former. There was no visible difference in the boot between 2 methods which supports your assertion that the boot seems to handle it just fine. curious - what is the general temperature of a common skate oven when it's pre-heated? some sources say 170, some say 180, but doesn't look like it goes to 220 so instructions might only be relevant for baking @ home? on a related note: Not sure if I'm the only one noticing this, but to me it looks like foams inside 100K boot are very different from the foam in the top Bauer skates? CCM foams are def more voluminous but they are very squishy and not very supportive! Bauer foams seem more dense and spongy so when pressed hard against them it never feels like they are completely flattening and giving out. Vs CCM when I press hard I can actually feel the hard surface underneath. As a result when I roll on the edge hard I can feel the ankle bone digging into the skate, something that never happened to me with Bauer?!

resurrecting an old thread, never really thought of it until now: how much ankle wrap is expected with modern skates at the very top of the skate? ie is ankle supposed to sit flush (or at least as close as possible) to the comfort pad? the reason I ask is because it seems that ankle pads/donuts are getting quite thick, which is great for the heel lock and all, but these pads don't extend all the way up to the top of the skate. Instead they taper off quite sharply just over the ankle bones, so no matter how hard I crank up the top eyelet I can still easily stick a finger between my ankle & the comfort pad. This results in quite a bit of ankle flexion and it changes the angle of the boot quite a bit. doesn't look like there is any way around it as long as quarters are straight up over ankle bones. They would need to curve inwards for me to wrap more tightly...

4.5 min in a preheated oven is a lot longer than what instructions state a max recommended time of 2 mins. Is that safe? Could it lead to long term deterioration of the boot?

I see. I thought you're adding more foam at the top of the ankle ie under the comfort pad so it sits on top of the donuts vs overlying over them. the ankle donuts are great, super thick, but they don't extend all the way to the top of the skate, and as they taper off, the stake edge is still only covered by a thin layer of foam under the comfort pad. also curious if you follow 2 mins baking instructions of bake your skates longer?

While in general I agree with the sentiment that a skate doesn’t make a player I’d like to point out the obvious: custom made pro skates aren’t the same as retail so Mcdavid’s jet speeds aren’t FT4s. plus each pro player makes unique adjustments like skipping 2nd top or the top eyelet, while others lace all the way up but loosely etc Ovi on the other hand cranks it all the way up in the stiffest skate ever and seems to be doing ok with it. so a more reasonable generalization would be: to each his own. Even setting the skate fit aside, the flex profile and stiffness level can suit each player’s unique style differently. But marketing surely can be very misleading offering a panacea to all issues.

Curious if you went with extra ankle padding on 100k and if you did what it ended up looking like? I’m still trying to visualize it, is it like a thicker comfort edge? I did ask for it on my custom order but can’t see anything different from the retail model up top hence the question.

of course you beat me, I'm still waiting for mine. Like how the green is gone and it says total custom, I requested green to be removed as well, we'll see if it worked and I really hope my size wasn't messed up. Did you manage to keep the retail tongue?! How?! I asked for it as well but was told that the only option is one of the 3 usual tongues 😞 Re baking instructions - seems very similar to what the proper bauer baking instructions were. Assuming the standard skate oven goes to 220.

Can Someone comment on what the Proper process for a “good bake” is like?! Not at home, at the store. Looking to confirm timing, oven pre-heating and whether baking 1 at a time is still the way to go?!! thanks in advance!

I didn’t mean to imply that I’m trying to bake $1600 skates at home 🙂 what I meant is they every shop seems to do it differently, but generally they just throw both skates in the oven for like 5-7 mins straight. In the past with Bauer skates I’m used to preheating the oven first for like 5 mins then putting 1 skate in, then 2 mins later put another one. 1 min later pull the 1st skate out, put it on, lace up. Takes about 1 min. Pull the 2nd one out, lace up. Sit for 10 mins then stand for another few. total bake time 3 mins, 1 skate as a time. my question is - how is this process different for CCM skates aside of the bake time being 2 mins (it seems) instead of 3?

any thoughts on the baking times/procedure for CCM skates? at some point (hopefully next couple of weeks) my customs will arrive and I want to bake them the right way. one thing I've learned is that the top 2 eyelets should be laced lose if at all since the boot is so pliable and might close off too much if top eyelets are tied tight after baking.

This sounds very promising! Obviously the correct fit is still the key, as with any other skate, and 100k have a particular fit profile that clearly didn’t work for me out of the box… curious: what are the proper baking instructions? The box says 2 mins, but I wonder if it’s understated? Like Bauer skates state that too but baking them for 3 mins is a safe way to go (assuming the oven is already pre-heated which takes anywhere from 3 to 5 mins it seems). also do folks still bake one skate at a time?

Here we go: https://ibb.co/brTm5sq https://ibb.co/V9qBsyM https://ibb.co/1sTLMF2 laced eyelet is #6 so surprisingly (since it didn’t feel too shallow on ice) I fail the test miserably below 3rd eyelet then @ 3rd I pass and about eyelets 1-2 I have about half an inch space so the cut the of boot doesn’t match the shape of my foot. In supremes I pass all across so the volume on 100k is distributed in a different way. I have to report that things started to click after another hour on ice yesterday, I played with lacing, laced all the way up but loosely, and the skate started to respond very nicely. So there do appear to be quite significant performance benefits from the one boot piece and some extra flex in it.

My thoughts exactly! if only I could get that silver writing in gun metal or grey (similar to gunmetal custom ultrasonics) it would have been even better! BTW this is what the ankle looks after the skate. Notice the big gap between the tongue and the ankle, the skate is fully laced. https://ibb.co/y85WR4C pasting the link somehow comes as link. I’m doing it on iPhone though so maybe that’s the difference

"beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I personally feel they are a lot more conservatively looking skates compared with all these flashy red and yellow colors modern skates are painted with nowadays! clearly you have trunks in place of your ankles 😉 here's what mine look from the side - the tongue is way back vs budging out like in your case: https://ibb.co/tB6MwsB and here's the view of the skate creasing when flexing: https://ibb.co/s9STWm5 (not sure why it won't let me just insert images btw, I try to use 'insert image from URL' but it simply doesn't work)

there is probably 20% more volume/depth around the top 3 eyelets as compared to NXGs, and it does feel too much for me personally. That's probably why pictures don't show how bad the situation is, since the ankle sits way back in the skate, and the tongue (which is thicker than the 3Flex tongue on NXGs) gives the false impression there is no volume issues. Around the foot the volume for regular fit seems on par with NXGs, but around the top 3 eyelets there is definitely considerably more volume. forefoot is odd: it looks Giant on the outside, but probably due to extra padding everywhere it feels snug on the inside. Then there is also uneven lacing, NXGs were perfectly straight and 100Ks have some odd wave pattern to it flaring around 5th eyelet then getting very narrow up top. CCM flex motion tongue is not stiff at all. On NXGs I've always staked with x-stiff insert (1mm thick Curve), and liked it much better than the 2 other ones included. Curious - can the depth/volume issues up top be addressed with the custom fit? Is that what advanced facing is all about? (unless it's only meant to move eyelets forward to add more volume vs move them back & cut the quarters accordingly)

as I mentioned the pictured don't do justice, so here's a couple more shots side by side next to my NXGs: https://ibb.co/Twb9D3r - notice that 100Ks are a much deeper boot around the top 3 eyelets, the rest of the boot has the same depth as the Supremes. also notice the shape up top, even unlaced it's very pronounced C vs U. https://ibb.co/0nv92gQ - as a result they complete wrap around my ankles. Can't figure out what the best angle to take the pic is to demonstrate it, but the result is that when I flex forward in a fully laced boot it actually creases massively around the 5th eyelet, the area where the top of the foot meets the ankle (not sure what the proper term is - mid foot?). In Supremes the ankle just flexes forward through the laces while the foot stays locked in place. I'm a strong skater, and pretty strong overall (190 lbs, 500 lb squat), but fully laced in 100K it's a struggle to bring the kneecaps over the toes. the weirdest part is - stopping on the outside edge all of a sudden is a challenge, ankle angle/flexion patter must be all wrong, catching edges vs stopping... I'll keep trying, ice availability is quite limited so going even twice a week is a challenge...

Here's a couple of photos, not sure they give justice, since even when tied loosely as in the pic, the skate still wraps quite a bit. The laces aren't waxed so I can't keep them tight anyways, but when I pull on them the top eyelets come to about an inch within each other. Top quarters are quite soft when it comes to squeezing them together (ie side-to-side), but the boot itself feels very solid front-to-back. So I'm not really sure where the forward flex is supposed to be coming from... On all my bauer skates the top of the skate always looked like U with sides never really molding. Here's a couple of photos https://ibb.co/6wnFZMn https://ibb.co/sv6NNVL What's the correct baking procedure for these skates? Still one at a time or doesn't matter? Flexing forward or 90 degree knee angle? Does the pencil test still work @ the top of the boot to determine if there is too much volume and quarters need to cut back ideally?

Completely agree, which is why I went and bough my first ever CCM skate 🙂 I think the last revolutionary skate Bauer had was One95. It had some initial issues (they were bricks) to they refined it over Total One & NXG, but after that the progress seemed to have stopped for them. And now with CCM holding patent over one-piece boots there is just not much wiggle room for Bauer it seems other than adding gimmicks here & there... I had reinforced eyelets in my Bauers, which is a 1mm plastic insert that runs along the edge of the skate. It doesn't heat mold nor bend, and as a result with Bauers they provided zero wrap. Which is why it's so foreign to me to have the boot form C at the top vs U. So my question is - is that even Ok? Should the top eyelets wrap around the ankle? There are youtubes of Scott Van Horne molding the skates but dealing with top eyelets separately: not lacing them, limiting the amount of shrink wrap around the ankle area, or there is even one where he uses heat gun to open up top eyelets hence the question above. Maybe the boot have too much volume for my ankles or I needed to be flexing forward during the molding process? Any pics would be appreciated, just to have a reference point. Totally caught me off guard since the skate felt like a cast/ski boot, it didn't seem to have much forward flex when laced all the way up.

Ok, first impressions form an hour on ice in retail 100k pro (coming from extra stuff custom Bauer’s, having skated with top eyelet undone for the last decade): Stakes feel nothing like Bauer! I had the same steel before (black steel) so the pitch/profile of the blade is the same, the holder on CCM might be a touch more positively pitched than LS2 (I didn’t have edge on my skates) so I felt a bit more on my toes. during baking skates have massively wrapped around my ankles to an extent I’ve never seen before. So when laced all the way up the skates felt crazy stuff! I couldn’t bring my kneecaps anywhere close to my toes and as a result ankle flexion was affected greatly. Edges felt strong but stops and transitions were totally weird, so from the initial impressions I cannot say I saw the advertised benefits of increased agility and forward flex. Unlacing the top eyelet made it feel more normal (for me anyways) but honestly I’m not yet sure what the hype was all about. Can’t say the advertised energy transfer from one piece boot is that much better than a very traditional 2 piece design. With that in mind: can anyone comment on the top of the boot wrap at the ankle? looks like MLX/True do they too? And if even giant players like Chara skip top eyelet in True it’s really just a personal preference?

Re the Formula: never suggested it’s the right way to go about it, but it’s been a de facto standard for many years, and still is it seems: https://www.bauer.com/en-CA/Sticks-StickFitChart.html https://www.purehockey.com/c/pure-hockey-stick-flex-guide so my question was re the cons but everyone is commenting on the pros instead. so to rephrase: what am I potentially going to miss out by dropping down in flex?

I’m going to preface this by stating that stick flex and length are totally subjecting to personal preferences (style of play, bio mechanics etc) and any attempts to generalize based on height and weight is just a starting point for experimentation. with that said I’m curious if there is any way to generalize Cons of going Lower from your “recommended” flex (most commonly formula out there is half of the body weight in pounds, further adjusted lower if someone is much shorter than average for that weight) is? Personally as I’m getting older and play less and less it’s becoming more labours to flex sticks I used to play with a decade ago. I used 87 cut down to 100 flex (as per marking on the shaft) but after trying 77 cut down to maybe 80 it feels like the shots have more velocity, but the stick itself feels a bit more like wet noodle so on hard passes I’m wishing for a more stiffer twig... has anyone been able to rationale all this?! Lol