2008 Mission Product

[mattzilla 0]

i dont know why everyone hated on the wicked. took a while to break them in, but theyre awesome skates.

[saba 0]

The break in really affected my foot health and skating. With that said they do come around, however, IMHO this break in problem should have been addressed before release or during trials. With that said I will be purchasing Mission skates in the future

[Bane 1]

If the Wicked takes anywhere near as long to break in as the He10000's I can see why people are complaining. I have had my 10000's for 25 games and they are still not completely broken in. At least I know they will last.

[mattzilla 0]

they take longer than the heluim line

[hockeytim18 0]

If the Wicked takes anywhere near as long to break in as the He10000's I can see why people are complaining. I have had my 10000's for 25 games and they are still not completely broken in. At least I know they will last.

How long have you been playing hockey?

[top-shelf 1]

My 10000's broke in relatively quickly compared to my Wicked 1's. In my opinion, (please don't tar and feather me for this) I think the 10000's were better overall skates than the Wicked 1's. The only reason I think this was the fact that 1) They were stiff as mess 2) They had a softly padded LEATHER lining on the inside of the boot. The Wicked ankle foams were remarkably uncomfortable compared to the 10k's. Again, this is my opinion.

[Justin 1933 134]

I can't say this enough...The NEW skates are so different than the Wicked Line. After presenting the line to over 20 dealers, the response has been amazing!!!!

[Patrick67 1]

Funny how last years product always is faulty when the new line comes out... Gonna bookmark your posts Justin, and then see what you write about this years product when next years products comes around...

Should be fun. (from a marketing aspect)

Btw. This years skate does look great.

[gman 0]

That is what innovation is all about. Mission is always looking foreword to make improvements. Generally they do not seem to make purely cosmetic changes but rather structural design revamps. A company will normally not put out a product that is not better than the one before. Granted mistakes do happen, and the 05' line seems to have had alot of trouble. But those problems were fixed with the HE line in '06. Then the Wickeds stepped up in '07 based in part on what the direct customer feedback was on the HE's. (If I have the years wrong, I'm sorry. But i am sure you all know what I am talking about) I am really looking foreword to seeing the new line in person.

[Patrick67 1]

I'm sure the new skate is better than it's the Wicked line, but I don't like the notion of "completely" revamping a skate.

Mission keeps working on their products, which is great, but I would like to think that the previous years model was so good(05' is an exception ofcourse) that this years model would have to be based on the same principle only with a few opgrades here and there(e.g. small tweaks and better material).

If you have the right "formula" for making a skate, you shouldn't be able to give it a major overhaul every other year.

[JR Boucicaut 3803]

But the point is, what happens when you find the right "formula?" You stop making skates?

As long as you are pushing the envelope and putting out a completely new product every year and just not keeping the same skate and changing a failed component, I don't have a problem with it. Although it puts pressure on the retailers because you only have a year to sell your stock, but if you buy smart you don't have that problem.

[shute 4]

Funny how last years product always is faulty when the new line comes out... Gonna bookmark your posts Justin, and then see what you write about this years product when next years products comes around...

Should be fun. (from a marketing aspect)

Btw. This years skate does look great.

you just watch this years problem is going to be those wheels. with missions past history, the shape of those Boss wheels i would say they are the love child of hyper and factory.

[TBLfan 25]

I think that although the innovation is great, it actually does hurt mission as a company. The name changes and just the sheer amount of different models gives off the appearance that they don't know what their identity is and more importantly just outright confuses customers.

I've said for a while and have said it a lot recently, Mission and TPS make great products BUT they are the most overlooked companies. Part of that is simply the name(people want RBK/CCM or Bauer), another part is availability(a lot of small shops can't afford to have mission and TPS when they have to stock the big boys), another part is lack of knowledge(the old Mission is a roller hockey company when ice hockey equipment is needed) and the last part is simply confused customers that see a $100 Mission Pulse and think it's a price point stick or thought the Pulse was top of the line and is wondering why the fuel is soo overpriced. As a company I would try to eliminate as many factors as possible and the last two can partly be avoided.

Hell, look how many threads and posts we've seen on the Easton SE and where it fits or how it compares to the SL/ST /Stealth/Stealth CNT and Easton is big time when it comes to sticks. Customers are dumb and you have to cater to that. I honestly can't keep up with all of the Mission sticks that have been released in the past 5 years... I have enough trouble keeping up with the gloves and I consider myself well versed in that area(although, I'm no expert). Same goes for Vapor skates... What does the XXV compare to? Does the XXXX fit the same as the XXX? What's better the XXXX or XXX? Better value: XXX, XXV or XXXX? It gets confusing, especially if you aren't in the 10% or so on MSH that know their stuff out of the 0.5% of hockey players that are actually on MSH(of course percentages are just guessed and cannot be considered accurate).

At this point, I can only count on two things from Mission:

1) A great product.

2) Great prices on last year's product.

Although this may sound good, it's just not good enough to give the big boys a run for their money... and that is a damn shame because Mission really does make a great product.

[hockeytim18 0]

TBL I think you're spot on with that analysis. And it is true most people only see Mission as an inline company when it comes to ice hockey. I personally buy their products for both inline and ice.

[JR Boucicaut 3803]

This is the wrong forum for that post. That applies to the ice side.

Roller is a different monster altogether and that's why the ice brands struggle in the roller market.

[TBLfan 25]

Yeah, I got kind of side tracked... But it's still applicable to sticks and gloves.

[saba 0]

great post TBL fan. Look at the home audio industry as a further illustration. A company like McIntosh or B&W which is old school stuff your dad probably used is the same today for the most part as it has been for 30 years. They might add more technology as the years pass but the internals, workmanship, looks,etc....remain constant. To me in that industry it represents strength belief in the quality of the product. Companies that change often are usually hot to sell the technology but are sparse when on the durability of the product.

IMHO Mission needs to spend a few seasons tweaking their offerings instead of changing names, promotion, and looks every year

[Patrick67 1]

My point exactly.

[TBLfan 25]

Adding to my long previous post...

Innovation is great. We've watched many companies evolve and develop new products in the past few years and that's awesome. I think, while it is confusing, customers respond better to a new product if they've seen or heard the name before. For example, the NBH Supreme one90. While it might actually put the other Supremes down or at least looked down upon by the uninformed general population it gives an already known name to a new product. You're going to get confusion, but that's a given. Of course when the new supreme line came out, most people thought the one90 was the top of the line supreme and the "one70" was the upper mid-level, but after 6 months a lot of people understood that the "one70" (uuuuuhhhhgggghhh) was a top of the line skate. NBH's mistake in identitys comes when they use the "one" prefix for other than the "one90" brand name for things other than sticks and skates. Again, while it makes sense on why the gloves and skates are the only ones effected, it confuses the general, ignorant population.

Also, if you look at a company like NBH. The Supremes are unchanged this year but the Vapors aren't. That allows one line to be consistant and the other one to be positive or fail(although the Vapor line already has a large following). Innovation doesn't mean you HAVE to put out a new product every year. Innovation means that you can let your products evolve, even if you innovate for another year before you make a change.

Like I said previously, this innovation and new products makes it really difficult for smaller shops to stock your product. My LHS carriers TPS(everything but protective), Warrior(new this year), NBH, THC, sherwood(everything but protective), Easton sticks and protective and Mission gloves. That's it and they do a relatively large volume of buisness, the place is always busy, especially in the past 3-4 years. Even with the buisness they get, they simply can't afford to stock all of the Mission gear. They know that it's not going to sell that well at the beginning of the year and they will have to sit on it they start running low on the big boy's patterns, handed-ness and flex options. That's when a brand like Mission will shine. It's high quality, slightly less expensive and once you try one, you're probably not going to outright turn you back on them. After that, it's all word of mouth.

Now when you have all these confused people trying to understand what the top-of-the-line Mission stick is, they give up and just buy the one70 stick because "I know it has to be better than this closeout Pulse I can get for the same price."

Please don't take this as I'm saying that Mission is stupid for doing things this way or stupid for doing things that way; but I feel that they are one of the few companies that could give NBH and THC a run for their money, just look at the Intake's popularity in the past year. Mission isn't going to go belly-up for doing things this way but I certainly thing it hinders their ability to make a push for success in anything other than roller hockey. Again, that is a shame because 3/4 (if not more) of the hockey world is missing out on a great company and great products.

I appologize for steering this thread off-topic but I kind of just got on a rant. I can only hope that I didn't write this in vain and that Mission or a few people at Mission can at least consider a change. As you can tell from a few responses that I am not alone in this thought process, but then again I'm also not being paid the big bucks to make decisions for a multi-million dollar company. With that being said... BRING BACK THE FLYWEIGHT!

[JR Boucicaut 3803]

ONCE AGAIN -

It's exactly what Joe Cook talked about last week - roller hockey is a niche market. Mission already has the biggest market share - and their formula has worked for them, and they can afford to take chances. Hell, look at these posts in this thread. It is what the roller players expect every year from Mission and sales have not lagged. I mean, really, could any other manufacturer put a plaid skate on the market and hear people go apeshit over it? And I'm not talking about MSHers - I was at the road show last week and I saw players comment on them. That Vector 10.0 SE was a roller boot. And it's not exactly flying off the shelves with an ice holder on it. Some things work for roller that doesn't translate to ice.

Your analogy is off-base - you are bashing them for changing their lines every year, yet you are comparing it to the wrong category. Their ice line has been on a two-year cycle for a few years now. The roller guys aren't involved on the ice side. This comparison would've been valid 8 years ago, when they did not have an identity in the ice game.

What kills them are shops who are afraid to stock their product - and that's not Mission's fault. It's the shops who would rather rest on their laurels and stock NBH skates because they know they would clerk every sale instead of pushing a skate they believe in. I order hockey for a 11-store chain of stores and I don't stock Mission high-end skates. Does this make me a hypocrite? No. If I stocked Mission high-end just in my store, I won't have a problem - I had zero probs selling Pure Flys and S500s when I stocked them in Orlando. Nobody came into my store and asked specifically for Mission - they were looking for another skate and I had to beg and grovel for them to throw them on. But once they did...

But could my other stores sell them? Most likely not - they'll have the customer come in and they'll give them what they want and clerk the Vapor XXXX.

Now back to Mission - the changing of names of the skates have hurt them. The skate types have been slightly tweaked (for the better, hit a bump with initial Fuel 2 yrs ago but made it up) over the years, but essentially have been the same style skates. But they don't have the Supremes and the Tacks names to fall back on. If they ride the Fuel name out for several years and keep those constant then they have a chance.

[TBLfan 25]

Well, again I was more of stating this as a whole, not roller(although I probably should have put it in the ice hockey section but what's done is done). I admittently don't follow roller hockey equipment or play roller more than just outdoor pickup.So I don't know about the particular product lines that are inline specific but more about the ice hockey lines and equipment. It was my fault for addressing my issues with Mission's ice division in the roller hockey section but I just kind of went off on a tangent. :)

JR, you know your stuff, you can sell this stuff... Most shop employees aren't as well versed as you and most couldn't talk that customer out of the Supremes for a better fitting AG or whatever, hell most wouldn't know that the Supremes wouldn't work as well for that customer. As they say, good employees are hard to find.

[Justin 1933 134]

All of the post have validity, but we must remember Roller is different....I treat our Roller product different than our Ice product. I am in charge of all roller product, as well as protective gear for both Mission and Itech (product that is more Ice hockey)...When I am working with the designers on the ice side, I have a different mentality than when I am designing stuff for Roller Hockey.

Now back on subject....

[kovalchuk71 212]

Those are the nicest ones yet.

[D-MaN88 0]

Justin, the Soldiers are by far the best looking so far!

[shute 4]

where are those orange chassis that i thought i saw?