For the last year and a half, I’ve been running out to Kanata every Thursday night to put the skates on and play some hockey. Unfortunately, every game has been excruciatingly painful, because my skates compressed my instep every time. Tonight, before my game, I headed over to Hockey One to see if my skates had issues. After working with the folks there, we discovered my skates were about 3 sizes too big, and my feet were moving around while trying to shoehorn my instep into a space too small for it. Small wonder it hurt.
I opted for the Graf 609s, an amazingly comfortable and light boot with a nice, wide fit. Sadly, they didn’t have my size in stock and had to order them in, so I’ll get them in a week. Boo-urns.
I debated for a while this eve, and decided I could put up with the pain for one more week, even though I really wasn’t looking forward to my feet feeling like they’d been put into a vice and beaten on with a ball peen hammer for fifty minutes. For the love of the game, I figured “what the hell”. As most of you know, I’m not that bright.
When I packed my gear up this eve, *everything* was in fine shape. In the 20 minutes it took to get to the arena, something happened. That blade has a whole four sharpenings on it and a season and a half on it. It cracked in two, which pretty much sealed the deal for waiting for the new pair of skates (the boys wouldn’t let me play on them, which was fair).
I’ve seen the Tuuk shell crack before, I’ve never seen the steel crack, especially on a skate with so little use. Weird, almost like they were telling me not to use ’em. So, I passed on hockey and went straight to Patty’s.
I’m looking forward to next week with the new blades. We’ll see how it goes.