MLX Skates Review

Now that the Islanders season is over, I get to talk about some of the things I don’t often get to do during the season – equipment reviews!

If you go back several weeks, I posted a preview of what I knew of MLX skates as I eagerly anticipated the arrival of my custom tailored pair.

During my initial talks with MLX, they directed me to a section of their website that shows you how to measure up your feet – in order to get the perfect size skate. Keep in mind, you’re still able to pick whatever you like, such as a little extra toe room, or toes right to the toe box. Regardless of what you choose for yourself, fit with these skates is phenomenal. I’ll touch on that more later on.

A quick background on MLX as a company:

MLX is a company partially backed by none other than Mario Lemieux, and headed by Founder/CEO Dave Cruikshank – the former Chicago Blackhawks skating coach AND former US Speed Skating Olympian. Cruikshank wanted to incorporate some of best attributes of high end speed skates and move them into the technology for hockey skates. Cruikshank says this best himself; “The goal was to determine how to make a hockey skate that would deliver the performance features necessary for the game of hockey at the highest levels, but also deliver the speed attributes from speed skating.”  MLX does this by using lightweight carbon fiber and other materials, that can be heated at home in your oven and MOLDED to your feet. It’s pretty cool stuff and works well.

The Arrival

After some confusion and shipping delays, my skates arrived 2-3 weeks after I had provided them with my sizing. The company had great communication with me through the process and apparently, my skates were SO custom that they had to be special made to my specifications. Talk about service.

The skates came shipped with some paperwork explaining the prep work needed, a Torx T-20 driver for the screws on the skate, some extra hardware, stickers, two sets of “shims” and even a skate key.

I’ve been skating and playing hockey for a long time, granted – it’s not at a level of any of the pro’s but I know when I have stumbled upon something that works. You can imagine I’ve been through quite a few different skates over the years, Easton, Bauer, CCM, Graf, and most recently – a custom set of Graf skates I had made through Joe Ferraro. I know I am getting ahead of myself here in this review – but the MLX skates are the most comfortable, fastest skate I have ever laced up.