CCM is an old favorite hockey brand of mine. For those of you who don't know, I started playing hockey with CCM skates. I had a love hate relationship with them. When I first started off. My feet didn't quite fit into them. They had a wide foot base in the boot. This meant that my foot was moving around a bit. When that happens in hockey, you can forget about playing at your old skill level. I rated myself a high level player and I wasn't able to play at a high level. Having the boot too wide made lose speed. It also made me fall while skating more often than I had liked. I thought for a while I was doomed. You see, I had no money after I spent over three hundred dollars on these damn things. The skates didn't fit properly, how was I going to ever be successful now? I would have to wait atleast two or three years before these things would fit me. What ever would I do?
Okay, so my hockey skates didn't fit and I seemed upset. CCM didn't seem like a brand that I would like to play the next few years with. Then, something happened. I decided to double up my socks. I may have even trippled up my socks. I don't quite remember, but it did the trick. I was soon the faster player and I was getting more confident again. Moral of the story is that I had gone to score the most goals and get the most breakaways I've ever gotten with these skates and they lasted me more than ten years. In fact, my feet can barely fit in them now and the toes are scrunched, but aside from that they are more comfortable than ever. I'll get to the whole hockey company take over thing in a second.
The end of my CCM skates was this year. After years of inactivity, I decided I should play the sport again. I tried on my old CCMs and I was saddened to see that they were a half inch to an inch too small. I can't believe my feet grew that much from when I was a teenager. I went from not being able to fit in them, to being oversized. This brings me to a decision I had to make. I had gotten new skates, but not CCMs. I like company, but I'll have to do some testing with their newer stuff.
If you didn't know, CCM was taken over by reebok a few years ago. Yeah, that shoe company. I know what you are saying. So what? The thing is I miss the days when a hockey company was a hockey company. Not a subsidary of a shoe company. All these shoe companies have taken over sports and I don't know how to feel about it. I bought Bauer hockey skates, because they recently branched out from Nike and are trying to go back to their roots as a pure hockey company. I used to have Bauers back in the day and now I have them again. I have yet to play a real game in the skates, but I can't wait. Hopefully CCM will do the same.