raganblink

Oh I know I was assuming and being prejudice. But the oddity of what they were doing was my warning bell. Even if they came in straight from church I wouldn't have accepted the check. We have NEVER had a full family come in looking for skates, for beginners no less, wanting anything above low-mid pricing. Even the filthy rich customers that do come in, they would never buy themselves or wife 600 skates. Maybe their kid, definitely not the whole family to use for public skate. chippa, it wasn't the fact that his address didn't match his license - the name didn't match it either. It was Earl XXXXXX and his name on the license was Junior XXXXXXX. His wife hopefully isn't named Earl, so it was from a different family altogether.

Had a shady looking family (drove beater car, dirty clothes, I could smell beer on the dad) come in looking for skates. There were 4 of them looking for skates. They said they wanted to put these two into hockey (their kids) then ma and pa wanted skates to go out with them. They stated that money was no object, and wanted the best skates they could get. So I sized all of them up, accordingly in EQ50 Sr and Jr, CL Sr and APX Sr. That's alot of money... Like 2200 or something like that. Anyways after about 45 mintues of sizing them up we go to checkout... He whips out a check. I looked at the check, and it was from how do I word it.. bad? side of town. I had family that lived in the same area.. it was run down. I looked at his ID and all that matched was the last name. I didn't bring that up because the most (unless we know who you are) we accept checks for is $100. I have never seen this family in my life, and definitely wouldn't do that much of a check... I state the $100 maximum and state if he had credit or debit card... Nope. He asks if we can hold all of these skates for me until saturday (He came in on wednesday at like 1). So I did.. just put them back on the shelf when it was obvious they're not coming in today. The nerve some people have, trying to scam a business, let alone a local one. That check would have either bounced or been reported stolen or something. Just boggles my mind why people do the things that they do.

on customs they just do the back two coppered unless asked for the 3rd.

Sold a stick last weekend, it was paid for, and I cut it down for the kid. As the kid is walking out of the store, he does a double take, and notices that it was a lefty... He's a righty. I cut 1 inch off the stick, so I decided to just exchange it for a righty so the dad doesn't have to spend another 100 dollars. He was extremely grateful, and even though he buys probably half of his gear from us, he swore that every thing his kid needed it would be from us from now on (the kid is 9, so that's another 10 years of sales :) ) I figured at worst I'll eat 20 bucks off this stick - worth it IMO to getting a customer for life. As luck has it, I get a call asking if we had so and so in stock, and that if we have a saw on hand as this kid is short. Was perfect for them. Everything went better then expected. :) Maybe I need to buy a lotto ticket haha.

kid is an idiot you talked to. Said what he had to say to get you to come in. Or he is just that stupid to tell the difference. In that situation I would have offered to get 4.0s in for you, and sell them to you at that price. Kid messed up, and from the sounds of it, might have lost a customer for future business. If you mess up that badly you need to do what you have to do to make the situation right.

I think customers ask that to somehow ensure themselves that the person selling them product actually knows what hockey (or any other sport) is about. However it is quite redundant to ask that kind of question in a store that sells for only one sport. In Scheels? I'd understand that, in Ma & Pa Hockey Store? No. Pretty sure you're not working in a hockey specific store if you've never played or your kid isn't playing. I at least haven't heard of that.

"92 players in the NHL wear graf skates.... My cousin plays in the NHL and was telling me how they do it.. they take a graf boot and apply the decals of CCM U whatever" "There's a reason most linesmen and refs in the NHL wear graf skates... they're the best"

Unless you can produce custom sticks for a customer, and have them in my shop within 5 minutes, having stock will ALWAYS be the dominating stick sales. These programs is more for the people who A) have a very specific specs that they LOVE that they do not offer at retail, and will buy several and always make sure several are always in their stick collection, or for the B) person who uses this a gift to the player or as 'something to have' because its custom. MOST sales will be that latter category. For instance, I routinely see people with mybauer sticks, when they just as easily can get a TO anywhere (use a common curve, etc). Very few of them have these because they fell in love with a grip/curve/whatever they don't offer at retail. Almost all I have seen have a common curve, their team colors on it, and their name. That's it. I'm suspecting that this will be more of the same. Why would you spend 260 on a stick when you've never shot with the curve? I know some will, but most wouldn't.

3. Alive composite boots are 3 minutes, one at a time.

It's 3 minutes @ 200, one skate at a time.

With the cost of a top end stick rising, I've seen an increase in shaft blade. Also more kids are putting in a blade in a broken ops. As for this customizer, thank you warrior. Going through the shop is much appreciated.

They do something about it... earlier this year we contacted them and site was offline within 8 hours. Site was definitely from China.

Those things are actually illegal. Contact rep and odds are the site will get shut down pretty quickly. They take fake jerseys super seriously. People who import them, even if they aren't distributing them and just buying one for themselves, can be in deep mud.

Kid came in needing an end plug with his girlfriend.... Hey buddy, can you make my stick bigger? My GF doesn't know how to. ...she slapped him. Thought it was pretty fun. Also yesterday had a mom bring me in a gatorade, just cuz. Thought it was really nice of her.

That's what I thought too. I'm starting to think that they weren't his skates. Not trying to generalize, but, if you have that type of skate, more than likely you have absolutely no clue about anything related to sharpening skates. The people who have levelers that i've seen all had some form of high-middle to top end skate.

Had a guy I've never seen before just walk out.... CCM V01 skates, virtually brand new but have been sharpened a handful times before. Asks for 3/4". Nothing out of the ordinary. While on the first skate the guy is hovering the sharpener, which, isn't uncommon, especially with people who are newer to the game and want to see how its done. So i finish first skate, stone, set it down. He picks it up while I'm working on the second skate. Notice out of corner of my eye, the guy has a leveler AND a depth checker out checking the skate. 3 minutes later when I'm done with the other one, he does the same thing. I've had people grab a quarter out, I've had people bring in their own leveler before, not that surprising when I see it, b/c I understand, if I ever have my skates sharpened by someone else you bet for damn sure I'm making sure they didn't ruin them. But I've never seen someone whip out a depth checker. And add to the fact that these were for 50 dollar skates, well, mind-boggling.

For what its worth, we have two organizing bodies for men's league, one is a & b, the other is c & d. The ab league allows many to wear old coopers and jofas, which are useless. Cd requires traditional helmets, oldest they allow is the ccm ht2. And they prefer helmets that are certified.

Why would u throw him out? Does ur league require current certified helmets? In black and white terms they are just as 2004 rbk 8ks (no protection) due to decertification from hecc csa.

Haha yup I know. Being a skate fitter once a month though, worth the laughs.

Another moment. Family comes in looking at skates, and the kid wants the vapors. Anywhere from 300-400ish they wanted to spend, the best skate he fits into is a vapor, and i went with the 5.0s. The dad then starts talking about the 6.0 and 7.0, questioning what the differences are between the 5.0 and those models. So i explained the differences. He then started asking me about the x40, x50 and x60 and the differences between those and the new vapors. After explaining the differences between them is a different footbed for all of them, and the x7.0 has new, better ankle pads, aswell as the updated color schemes, the dad looked at me and straight up word for word: "So what you're telling me is, there isn't much of a difference between them, so why should we buy the new ones from you when we can go online and get the old ones a lot cheaper". Quiet frankly I would do the same thing, save the $ and get the old model unless there was a decent change. Anyways i told him, you know what, I probably would, but then again, I personally try to support local business (this family doesn't buy shit from us) and would bite the bullet and spend an extra 100 bucks to get the new version from us. Your son already said he liked the look of the skates more then the old ones, and you can get them now, and -insert our incentives here -. Then he looked at his wife, who gave him a demon look, and he was like yeah im sorry but im not gonna spend an extra hundred bucks because my kid likes these better. Completely forgetting the other things I mentioned. Whatever. I noticed that he didn't mark down the size his kid needed (VERY common size, just looked on a few retailers and they don't have his skate size) so maybe they'll come in with the wrong size have me bake and sharpen them, then come back in a week or so and bitch that "I" sized him up in the wrong size. What's funny is if he gets x40s he'll literally size like 40 bucks after incentives are given to him, and he pays 30 for bake/sharpening. Not really worth it to me, to go out of way like that to save 40 bucks and to have your LHS think less of you b/c you keep using us as a fitting service to save a buck or two, if that.

Oh boy, assumptions in the hockey industry. Dangerous combination.

Already happening on sticks from some companies (major even). Give it five years and I won't be surprised to see it from someone selling gear direct to public.

I agree on that, there is certainly a limit I would pay for gear as well. Definitely wouldn't pay that much for a TO. But personally if a LHS is within 10% of MAP, it is worth getting it there now and getting the right size etc rather than going online, saving literally 2-3%, guessing on size and waiting a week. But at that price I would definitely get it somewhere else.

Haha. Brilliant, i love idiots, they make my day. This thread is always good for a laugh. I don't think people realize, if we were in this to get loaded, why have we been here for so long? Sooo many people think our mark-up is like 80%, because well kohl's has it that high, doesn't everybody? I mean that stick you sold me for 200 bucks, you guys clearly made like what, 120 on it, right? lol.

had a guy come in today looking at sticks, and i'm talking to him about curve and flex etc and the difference between the models. He says he's coming from 5030s and wants to get into composite, so to narrow the hunt down i ask how much he wants to spend, 100-150. So i show him one80 eq30 eq40 and he starts shooting with them seeing how they feel. So after about 15 minutes of doing this, he wonders around the store and picks up the totalone, and starts shooting with this. i explain they offer more curves on it compared to like the one80, so if you want a unique curve (p02 iirc) you'll need to get a more expensive stick. So anyways he starts dicking around with those, and then, literally after 25 minutes of messing around with sticks and picking my brain, he writes down the stick and curve and leaves. its like really dude? You're clearly interested in buying a stick, why just not get this one? Same price same quality of product its not like online offers a better stick, and you're getting it now and supporting a local business. I really wish I would have seen him write the curve and stuff down without someone else in here... would have gone off. -insert rant about online and their marketing techniques here- "normal price 20% higher than map" "our price is map" bugs the shit out of me. People are too stupid to go into a place, and look at their price, they just take their word for it. There is such a huge misconception that LHS = really expensive over priced etc (i know some are but that's not the point) and online = super cheap.