9'/10' - Torikkun

[Torikkun 6]

Steel - Step 220

Hollow - 3/4"

Profile - 9'/10' (Test 1)

About Me - I started skating about 2 years ago and started playing hockey about 1 year after that. After reading a ton of threads, everyone emphasized skating, so I wanted to make sure I could skate before I got into any hockey. Had I done things differently, I would have starting skating and doing off-ice stick work because when I started playing, my hands couldn't keep up with my feet. (They still can't hahah, but I'm slowly getting there.) Every time I play hockey with someone new, they've always commented on how good my skating looks. I've been asked multiple times if I figure skated in the past. A lot of people think I'm really fast (at my level), even though I always lose in straight races with my friends, so I think the "fast" perception comes from smooth skating. I definitely feel like technique wise, my skating is very smooth, but my greatest weakness is agility with turns/pivots and explosive power acceleration/stops. I also have a bad tendency to skate upright in the back, even with my knees bent, and this comes from scoliosis surgery I had at 13. (My posture is great though!) This causes me to be a bit more on my heels than I should.

Being an engineer, I love to tinker and try out new things. When I felt I was a decent enough skater I started fiddling with hollows. This site got me interested in profiling, but I could never justify trying out a bunch of different profiles, so this project was the perfect excuse! I've had my skates profiled once when I upgraded my skates. The boots were physically the same size, but since the listed sizes were different, CCM used a smaller holder/steel. The new skate felt too rockery, so I had them profiled to a 10'.

Review- 

• There really wasn't much difference between this profile and the control 10'. The biggest difference was the added stability and extra heel in the back. Since I my natural posture/balance point is more in the back, I felt like the extra heel interfered with my balance a bit. A lot of time the extra heel felt like it was dragging and causing the skates to feel slower. The extra heel didn't feel different with backwards skating.
• Stopping: The steel seems to catch more--but only along the back half of the blade versus if you were to increase the hollow and feel the extra bite right at the center/rocker. Just a small annoyance--we'll see if this changes if I play in a game where I'm not focused on skating.
• Power Pulls: (This is where you switch from outside to inside edge on one foot.) Initially, I had trouble doing these. After the 2nd, 3rd pass around the long side of the rink, I was able to adjust my skating and do them again. My feeling was that the rocker point was in the same spot but what made it harder was that all my weight seemed to be stuck on the back so when I initially started, I couldn't really use the edge correctly. I didn't notice this issue at all when I was purely doing just 1-foot c-cuts (inside or outside edge). To adjust, I needed to lean my weight more forward so I was more balanced on the rocker properly.
• Overall, didn't really like this profile. It felt like having a toe pick on my heel. 

Acceleration: 2.5
Mobility: 2.5 (-0.5 from control)
Stability: 3.5 (+0.5 from control)
Speed: 2.5

Profile Tested Before This: 10' (control)
Next Profile: n/a

(Additional Comment)
I've skated one public skate on this, so I'm going to play a game tomorrow night and report back! Maybe one other public skate.

[Torikkun 6]

Played a game last night. I didn't notice any difference when I got on the ice, but I also didn't swap steel in the middle of the game. One thing I felt odd was that I had great stability on the right skate, but my left still had a "rockery" feeling. I'm going to try going to pick-up and swapping steel in between to see if I notice any significant differences.

[Torikkun 6]

Looks like it's been a year since I last posted on this... Since the last test, JR suggested changing the pitch since it was odd that I felt like I had a toe-pick on my heel. Unfortunately, I never got to test this out since work got really busy and I kept injuring myself over the entire year. I had switched back to the control 10' profile in the past year since that's what I was used to. I decided to give the 9'/10' another try.

I went to a public skate and started with the 10' then switched to the 9'/10' halfway through. I didn't notice much difference aside from being able to do tight turns much better. I felt like I could lean harder into the turn and the front of my blade didn't just flatten out. I actually didn't feel any of the "heel toe-pick" I felt from last time. I think the heel-pick feeling went away due to my skating improving. This year I've focused on leaning forward more to get better on my toes. It might be that in the past, I just leaned too far back in my skates, so when I switched to the 9'/10', I might have leaned too far back due to me unconsciously feeling like the front was too rockered.

I also recently re-baked my skates and improved the heel lock. (See post here for details.) I think the re-bake helped a lot with the stability.

Since the public skate was pretty crowded, I didn't get to test much of the speed and mobility. I'm going to give this profile a more tries since I had such positive results today. I remember trying them last year and hating them so much that I wanted them off my skates as fast as possible.