colins

Super beefed up facing - at least three different materials from toe to ankle to support the eyelets/laces.

Interesting that the FT6 Pro skate pics I've seen have added a facing on top of the composite material to support the eyelets. Similar to the AS V Pro. Certainly suggests that the eyelets directly in the composite wasn't a durable strategy long term.

I don't think any off ice aid can help develop proper skating form. A slideboard can help develop some muscles used in skating - won't make you faster but should make you more stable. Balance work, hip and ankle mobility, all good things to make you a better skater. But they won't really address skating form, that's an on-ice activity. If you develop excellent balance and range of motion (hips & ankles primarily), your skating will naturally get better the more you do it. But sprinting addresses the 2nd half of the question - power. If you want to get faster, sprint. If you want to increase your athleticism overall, sprint. It's the rising tide that floats all boats. Sprinting is the holy grail. Get faster on land and you'll be faster on ice. Sprint training is as much about training your central nervous system as it is about training your muscles - Tony Holler 'Feed the Cats' has done excellent work in this area if you wanted to read more about it.

To followup - the store is returning them and providing a new pair. So it seems the onus was on the baking process causing the eyelets to shift/pop when tightened in store. They had limited selection for replacement given that the FT4 Pro is about to be replaced by the FT6. Tried on some AS V Pro and 100K to compare - found the AS V tapered to fit even better than the FT4 Pro Regular in the same size (Coming from an original Jetspeed D in the old sizing system - so no direct comparison) & bonus - the AS V Pro has more reinforcement around the eyelets on the facing, whereas the FT4 Pro has the eyelets stamped right into the composite material. AS V Pro is a stiffer boot - we'll see how that works out once they get broken in. Lesson learned - be careful how much heat/time is used in baking new 100% composite boots - the eyelets will shift if they are too hot.

Are you sprinting 3-4 times a week? Timed sprints, tracking progress, preferably spikes on a track with digital timer gate. If not available, cleats on grass and iPhone app.

Team provides them. I'm just looking for a solution so his FT2's (which are falling apart - toe cap stitching all gone and piece missing, eyelets failing) can be replaced with something he can rely on. Whatever mistakes were made need to be corrected, which is why I shared for input in the first place. I have no way to tell how much they were heated (he wasn't told in store) and he said he tightened them "like I always do". So the chances right now of getting a replacement pair and ending up any better off are unknown at this point. Unless he goes to a different baking method altogether as you mentioned. I'm not sure if they store can do that for him or not. I don't want him to take them home to deal with baking himself.

Check my posts. I've been playing myself for 40 years, two boys in their 20s one playing D3 the other JrA. I've repaired a bunch of gear myself from repalming a glove, to replacing eyelets with my own press, to stitching a shoulder cap on a pair of shoulder pads, to being a Sparx kickstarter early adopter. I'm not bullshitting - this is our own experience with CCM Jetspeeds. Overall positive, he loves the fit and performance, 7+ years from 2015 to present and 5 or 6 pairs of top end or 2nd tier CCM Jetspeed line. But eyelets have been the bane of the experience as they always failed early before the boot/holder - the irony is I thought the all brass FT4 Pro was the final solution to that. Then this happened! For sure he's an outlier in terms of skate durability for several reasons I list above. My younger son can (and has) kept a pair of Bauer Supreme 2S skates for 3 seasons. He doesn't sweat as much or tie his skates as tight. These FT4 Pro's were baked and laced in store under staff direction. Did he tie too tight with the 'wrong' technique? Maybe... I have no other way to explain the end result. CCM's own directions don't specify a 'way' to tighten the skates (up vs. out) - it just says tie to 'normal' tightness, do not overtighten. Whatever that means to the individual.

Bauer before switching to Jetspeed when the first Jetspeed came out - found the receipt from the original RMA - first pair bought in July 2015. So he's been through 5 or 6 pairs of Jetspeeds (top end model or 2nd tier) in past 7 years. He's always worn out skates relatively fast (usually 1-2 seasons max) due to 1) Hyper-hydrosis level sweating (corrosive) and 2) Plays hard/physical and 3) On the ice 5-6 times a week and 4) Likes his skates tight - he does pull the laces as tight as anyone or a bit tighter than the average player. He baked and tied them in store under direction of the staff.

Agreed. They weren’t skated in until 24hrs+ after baking. Here’s the extent of the shifted eyelets. Eyelet 1 is cracked. The rest are shifted. Not feasible to repair given they are 1 game old. Whether the blame is too much heat or tightened too hard after baking, they’re toast.

Looking for the best shop for laser scanning & inventory to try on all makes/fits of CCM and Bauer top end skates in New Hampshire, close to Laconia? There's a HockeyMonkey in Derry NH, a TSR in Salem & a Pure Hockey in Nashua I believe. Any others around this area? Which of these would be best to find the right fit (looking for inventory & knowledgeable staff). Boston is a bit out of range, hoping to find a good option within an hour or so of Laconia. colins

To clarify - I've had issues with the black CCM stamped logo eyelets corroding and failing. Never a brass eyelet. Never due to baking. They fail over the course of the season due to corrosive sweat eating away the thin eyelet material. The brass eyelets have never exhibited this problem. The FT4 Pro has all brass eyelets. This failure is day 1, unrelated to sweat exposure/corrosion. To be fair to CCM, it's probably the 5th pair of JetSpeed skates he's had since the very first JetSpeeds debuted. He's coming from a pair of FT2's to these. Every pair with the stamped eyelets have corroded, but I was able to get more life out of them by treating with some rust proofing coating - Corrosion Free (Formula 3000) and by inspecting them frequently and replacing an eyelet as they started to spin/disintegrate, well before the lace would rip through the boot. We really thought the FT4 Pro was the end of this issue - all brass eyelets would mean no more corroding. Then this happens. He plays D3. Thankfully I'm not out of pocket for these skates either way. Just looking for solutions in case he does get a replacement pair, and hopefully to avoid needing to switch to Bauer which he hasn't worn in 6+ years.

These were baked in store where they were purchased. Not mine, these are my son's skates, I wasn't there at the time so I don't know how long they baked them for. In any case, agree this seems like a botched bake job - over heated and over tightened by the looks of it.

The first link is actually my thread... but that issue was with the cheap CCM stamped eyelets in the original Jetspeed. Went with the FT4 Pro this time due to the enhanced feature of all brass eyelets. Didn't exactly pan out.

Brand new, first game in FT4 Pro skates & eyelets popped & shifted. Anyone else experience this? Over baked maybe?

A poll for folks who previously were a JetSpeed/FT1/FT2 'D' width - what are you fitting well in the new CCM fit system?

I checked the first dozen or so listings for FT4 Pro skates on Sidelineswap and every pair has all brass eyelets. So it seems CCM botched the marketing and distributed a bunch of media (including on their own website) that show the wrong eyelets on these skates. Confusing to have this lack of attention to detail for their own product. colins

Ok, simple question - do all FT4 Pro senior skates come with all brass eyelets? Should be a simple thing to figure out, however the info I can find is confusing. Exhibit A: CCM USA Website for the FT4 Pro Senior - picture clearly shows the cheap CCM stamped black eyelets in all but the top and bottom which are brass: Exhibit B: Sportszone Canada, clearly shows all brass eyelets for the FT4 Pro Senior Skate: Exhibit C - This review, with the included quote below in bold: https://myhockeystore.com/blogs/news/ccm-jetspeed-ft4-pro-skate-review "One new feature is the introduction of an asymmetrical toe box. It's slimmer and features less negative space inside your skate, resulting in a more comfortable, natural fit for your toes. Another small, yet noteworthy feature on the boot is the inclusion of brass eyelets throughout the entire skate. This will add more durability to the boot, which is essential for players that are on the ice multiple times a week. " Can anyone sort this out? Does the FT4 Pro Senior come with all brass eyelets? Is it a custom option? Why is the published material on this in conflict - did it change year over year since the launch? colins

Let your ears decide. If you hit too high,the tension of the wheel against the steel will cause the pass to sound like it's dragging or non-uniform. If it's dragging, lower the wheel to reduce the tension/friction against the steel. Adjusted correctly, a full pass should sound smooth and of uniform pitch. The wheel shouldn't slow down or change speeds (resulting in different sound) unless maybe it encounters a bad spot on the steel, which is normal. Dial it in so each pass is smooth and uniform in sound front to back and you'll get a nice smooth finish on your blades.

The 7092 (model below the Tacks but same line) didn't have the diaper or adjustable pads. It was the better option IMHO between the Super Tacks girdle and 7092 girdle, provided you didn't need the adjustability of the thigh pads and bought the correct size 7092 to fit.

My Sparx is just over 5 years old. It shipped Jul 2016. My two boys were in minor hockey at the time and they now play Jr A and NCAA. I play beer league a couple times a week. I've never had a single problem with the Sparx in that time. I routinely do 2 passes every couple of games/practices to keep our edges always 'like new'. I very rarely do more than 2. I've sharpened everything from Step Steel to stock steel and the Sparx handled them all equally well. When coming home from Jr A seasons my boys' steel was usually destroyed from a profile perspective because of their team equipment managers sharpening on BladeMaster machines. The toe and heels were significantly rounded off from the manual machines. Sharpening on the Sparx (which I have done for my own skates exclusively) has never affected the profile on my steel, so my blades last a lot longer than theirs do. But then again they are on the ice practically ever day vs. twice a week for me. I don't have any experience with the ProSharp unit so I can't offer any comparison head to head. Yes, it would be great if Sparx wheels were cheaper but honestly at the current prices and the way I use my machine, it's simply incredible value to me and our family and has been since the first day it arrived. Russ owns the company so yes take his words with a grain of salt as everyone has their own biases, but Russ is an engineer not a business or marketing guy. Everything I have read or watched (lots of great Sparx history on youtube) from Russ was logical, fair, balanced and very much what you would expect from an engineer with a background in industrial design. I was in on the Kickstarter like many others here, and for that first year or so when timelines kept slipping I'm sure we all wondered whether Sparx was ever going to deliver on their promise of a revolutionary home skate sharpening machine... well 5 years later after their first launch I can say from my own experiences with the product that they exceeded my expectations, and pretty much nailed it right from the first revision of the machine. For a small company like Sparx, that's pretty impressive when you consider what went into getting the first units out the door.

I think the key is that in the NHL today, at 5 on 5, there's very limited opportunity to care about straight line speed. Maybe 15-20 years ago it mattered a bit more. Today's player needs speed through the many obstacles that stands between him as the puck carrier and the goal. Everyone can skate now. You can't just go wide with speed down the boards anymore. That's why linear crossovers are where the game is going. It's not because they are faster in a straight line, it's because they are faster in the non-straight lines an NHL forward has to take to find open ice and maintain momentum.

But now you're talking speed skating vs. hockey. If we're talking skating for hockey, the answer is clear - McDavid's linear crossovers vs. Taylor Hall's deep squat / stride length - one is much more effective in the game of hockey than the other. Effective speed is all that matters. Hockey is not a NHL all-star weekend skills / fastest skater competition.

I agree. I like what Jason is doing as a young enthusiastic guy in this area, and I think if he keeps at it he'll refine his work into something a bit easier to digest. But I reference him mostly for his video, mostly because he pulls out and shows in slow motion the sequences that allow me to see and understand a bit better the mechanics being used by the best like McDavid, MacKinnon and Barzal. It can be learned later in life too I think, look at that recent goal by Leon Draisaitl vs. the Jets. He circles the net with some traditional crossovers to build speed, then does some linear crossovers to blow past Lowry and create separation to receive a pass and score on a nice finish. Just 2 season ago we didn't see this type of speed from Draisaitl, in fact at times he looked a bit slow and was accused of being lazy. Moreso probably because a lot of the big bodied guys have that slower looking type of mechanics in their skating. But there's no denying the effectiveness of this technique being applied in this case: https://twitter.com/TopherScott_/status/1362374406261985283?s=20

Thousands of coaches have spent their entire lives teaching skating without understanding what really differentiates good skating form from poor skating form. You can see a lot of folks are very passionate about the subject, but the amount of alignment in their beliefs is all over the map. Be wary of the anyone that thinks they have it all figured out. Anyone that claims that most certainly knows far less than they realize. Hell, NHL teams even in recent years have had power skating coaches like Laura Stamm teaching players to swing their arms front to back instead of side to side. Mike Bracko has disproved this and taught the side to side arm swing. Anyone talking about knee bend really means hip hinge. If you try to bend your knees without developing the ability to comfortably hinge your hip, you're going to have a bad time. But look at McDavid, the undisputed skating king of the NHL. No one puts fear into opposing D like McDavid. Does it look like he has a deep hip hinge / knee bend and long stride like Taylor Hall? No, not at all. Does he blow past players like they are standing still? Yes. So what's his magic? It's certainly in his linear crossovers and the power he's generating below the knee. His strength to mass ratio and the power he generates on his cross overs puts him in another league altogether. It'll be decades before most traditional power skating coaches catch up to teaching the technique McDavid is using vs. the old school Laura Stamm train of thought. I don't mean to pick on Laura, but her videos are on youtube and show what most traditional 'power skating' coaches have believed for years. I can't comment on ankle strength but ankle mobility is 100% important. People make fun of 'ankle benders', but elite skaters can (in a controllable way) pronate their ankles to achieve more power in their stride. Look up Jason Yee's videos on McDavid's and MacKinnon's stride analysis and watch what their feet and ankles are doing as they accelerate. Also look up Cal Dietz's work on ankle mobility and strength training, he's got videos on youtube. This is a very deep topic. Anyone who claims to know it all is surely wrong. If they were right, they'd have produced piles of players that skate like McDavid. But that hasn't happened. Players can become better skaters. But I'd argue most of what they need to do to get there starts off ice with mobility and speed work.

Biggest challenge moving from P88 to P92 is actually the lie. They are both stamped a lie 6 (in Bauer at least) but the P88 is a lower lie and it's significant enough to take note of. The solution is to go shorter on your P92 stick length than you would on the P88. This will allow the rest of your mechanics to stay similar without putting just the heel of your P92 on the ice when stick handling. I'd estimate you need to go 1-2" shorter to balance things out, but your mileage may vary. The other option is to find a lie 5 P92. They aren't so common. Special order from Bauer. I have seen them in Sherwood, I don't know if the standard P92 is a lie 5 in a Sherwood but a couple I've got from a JrA team are lie 5 and they're great.