How to get eyelets to stay in CCM U+12 skates

[jonesy9020 77]

Picked up some used CCM U+12s recently for a very cheap price and love the way they fit. When I got them, pretty much every eyelet on the skate was rusted out and disintegrating. I took them over to my local Total Hockey where I was thrilled to learn they do eyelet repairs for free. I was a bit morally conflicted about that (using a free service on a used skate) but there were no other stores open in the area. So I had them fixed, got them baked the next day, and pushing the lace through the eyelet, popped another eyelet out.

Got it repaired again and just took them out for a public skate today, and another eyelet popped out (different from the first that popped out). I'm trying to pull the laces out rather than up as much as possible but I can't keep getting these repaired every time I skate and I'm sure the guys at TH are tired of seeing me. Are there any tips/tricks out there to get the eyelets to stay put? Maybe some kind of glue I could use?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[chippa13 1844]

Sounds to me like the boot material around the eyelets has gone too soft and can't hold them anymore. You may need some reinforcement built into the boot to hold the eyelets.

[jonesy9020 77]

I'm thinking that's likely the case. How would I go about getting the reinforcement done? Have a cobbler sew on an extra strip of leather over the existing row of eyelets? Or do I need a skate guy to go in and add extra stiffeners between the layers?