I still can't believe this. I have been breaking in new boots - I've had them a month or so, I guess? I was skating on a freestyle session today and started warming up jumps, easy waltz jumps, nothing huge, and as I landed, suddenly my right (landing) boot was completely loose and I looked down and my laces were completely undone . . . I just assumed that somehow the laces had come untied but when I got off the ice I realized that one of the middle hooks was completely GONE. I relaced as best I could and headed back out to look for it because I knew that it would be a hazard, but once I found it and took a look at it, I saw right away exactly WHY it had come loose . . . it wasn't set correctly - on the back side of the hook, it has a sort of eyelet/rivet backing that sets the hook into the leather of the boot - well, the back side of this hook was all smashed to one side, completely deformed out of shape, and of course the side that didn't have much contact with the leather at all, gave way and allowed the whole thing to come loose from the boot.
So I'm just thinking, OK, I will need to have them reset this hook - then I realized that it was not only on my landing foot boot, but on the outside of the boot - probably the area under the most stress . . . so the question is, was I just unlucky enough to have ONE poorly set hook . . . or was that just the one to go first, because it was under the most stress?
(no way to tell if the other hooks are set correctly or not, because there is the inside padding of the boot that covers all of that up). I am sick to think that I am going to have to go through the whole break in process AGAIN, just as these boots are starting to feel good. But I just don't know if I can trust this particular pair of boots after what happened today. Will be checking with our skating director 1st thing tomorrow to see how the warranty process goes, I guess.
And I can't help wondering - what if those boots had gone to someone working on doubles/really BIG jumps - they could have really gotten hurt!! How does something like that even make it to the consumer . . . ugh!!