We recently had the opportunity to attend one of the many dope sneaker events this summer. It was organized by one of our brothers, Christian aka @FlippinLaces.

The name he bestowed upon the event was “Just Kickin’ It” and the event was literally just that. It brought together the sneakerheads within the community who had a true passion for it. Young, old, or new, it was a good place to come through and just kick it.

There was literally something for everyone. DJ Thomas Wade West was supplying the dope tunes, Habib Siam provided some comic relief, and there were some dance performances that included @FernGully and her Krump crew. He also had the infamous OG Toronto graffiti artist SKAM come through to create a mural, live. If you got there and needed a fresh fade, Anthony De Leon was there to hook you up.

Of course there was good assortment of sneaker displays from @EastEndHeat, @JSteaze, @NetMagnetism, @InKixWeTrust and others.

The vibe of the event was perfect, everyone who attended brought positive vibes and it felt like a big family picnic. We were able to see some familiar faces, meet some IG family for the first time and be reunited with others. This was a good representation of what the sneaker community should be about. If you didn’t attend this year, here is to hoping you can come through next year.

We just wanted to give another thank you to everyone for the success of Shu-Haul. Everyone who stopped by to show some love, whether you were there just to say what up, or you came to make a purchase, all of you made a contribution to the good vibes and fun.

Special thank you to NetMagnetism for hosting the event with us. Of course HUGE thank you to the family and Sneaker Wives that came to help out from set up to tear down, none of it was possible without you guys.

Last but not least, thank you to Big Philly aka, Sole Purpose aka, Philip Dos Santos for capturing some of the good vibes from that day.

So I dropped a bunch of nickels on a pair of 2005 Atmos “Viotech” Air Max 1’s a couple years back, only to be able to rock them a handful of times due to the deteriorating midsoles and sinking air bubbles. Damn.

When I finally accepted the fact that they’d never touch the asphalt again, I threw them into a Shueboxx alongside the OG Atmos Animals Air Max 1’s for display purposes at our events!


Then some time passed…  A whole lot of time.

And then one day I came across Jan ‘@kanotsky‘ on Instagram. Just like my fellow brothers of Canada Got Sole – I’m a sucker for the attention to detail, and as a restorer/customizer in the sneaker world you’ve got to be on that same level of detail that the shoe was made with… probably even BETTER!

I studied Jan’s work, crept his page, watched his many “pressure test” vids and scoped the sole swap work.  I found my guy. I hit him up and when he found out what shoe I was going to hand off to him he was ecstatic!  Like myself the Viotechs are his grails.

He used the Dynamic Berry Air Max 1 midsole/air unit as a donor sole since the air unit was a close match to the purple of the Atmos’ Swoosh. Peep the before and after pics in all it’s glory and stay tuned for on-foot shots of these!!

Jan @kanotsky is worth checking out for all your sneaker restoration/swaps!

Tell ’em Doon sent ya.

The concept of the event was to bring in some influencers, local celebs, and sneakerheads to give them the opportunity to customize a pair of Stan Smith sneakers. All under the guidance of the Shoe Surgeon and his team.

They gave customization options like high quality leather laces, replacement tongues with the Shoe Surgeon Logo, and some stencils that you could use to get some designs on the shoe. They also had replacement eyelets with an assortment of colors to satisfy anyone’s customization needs.

The event also opened up the Capsule 416 area of the store to showcase some of Shoe Surgeon‘s recent work. One of the notable ones were the Yeezy 270s, which are a combination of the Yeezy 350s and Nike Air Max 270. The Capsule also had some of his personal Merch which included a Toronto exclusive t-shirt.

Being able to experience the atmosphere and excitement of being able to customize a shoe, Shoe Surgeon style, was amazing. The creativity that was displayed was great to see first hand. The different styles and taste in fashion could be seen in everyone’s custom. Before starting the workshop Shoe Surgeon had given a short speech. One thing that stuck with me was how passionate he was about sharing his craft and making the sneaker community stronger. In Shoe Surgeon‘s own words “The Worst Thing You Can Do, Is Do NOTHING.”

This isn’t the first time Nike’s collaborated with Parra. It has been about 13 years since the two first came together. Every piece that Nike and Parra created has—in my opinion—been a masterpiece and all deserve the status of legendary. Piet Parra is most notably known for his work on the Air Max 1 silhouette. Each pair he’s designed has an amazing selection of materials and live up to the high standards we all expect from a collaboration. This release for 2018 is no exception.

Every panel of faux-suede is soft to the touch. It’s pretty damn sweet that original Air Max 1 materials were used throughout this pair. From previously mentioned suedes to the mesh toebox, to the nylon tongue and heel liner. The shoes are graced with a vibrant, yet well balanced mis-match of stripes and polkadots. There are stripes that hug the aglets, as well as under the tongue. Unseen to most, but such a nice touch.

Another detail you don’t see unless you go looking into someone’s pair is the insole; covered in Parra’s signature art style and overall theme of this collaboration. Now, of course one of my favourite parts of this collab is not even on the shoe, but what you keep the shoes in. I’m a sucker for slipcases and that’s exactly what the shoebox is. Beautiful I tell ya! Packaging gets me way too excited.

If you look at Parra’s collaboration collection with Nike, you’ll notice that all the outsoles of the Air Max 1s share a similar four colour blocking. Being a graphic designer, I love the fact that Parra has kept it consistent by sort of branding his outsoles with that specific look. The smallest details that complete the shoes for me are the mini Swoosh on the lateral side of the left shoe, and the “Parra” logo on the lateral side of the right shoe. it looks just right.

It’s been less than 24 hours since receiving the pair from Nike Toronto, and I legitimately cannot wait to rock ’em. I will most definitely be wearing them the day this article is published, which is the day after getting them in hand. I can confidently say that these will be a contender for Shoe of The Year, for me. Now, to get the matching jacket.

Biggest of thank yous to Nike Toronto for sending LDoggy and I each a pair of these instant classics.

First and foremost, what are duty taxes? Duties (also called customs), are a tariff that the government of Canada charges you for importing goods from foreign counties. The general rule of thumb is a 30% tax on top of your purchase, but it does fluctuate here and there. Everyone, from multi-million dollar corporations down to broke boys like myself are subject to paying these fees. In my “Buying from GOAT as a Canadian” article, I broke down how devastating these fees can really be, so this article will give you a step by step on how to avoid some of (not all) of these tariffs.

When you make these purchases online and have them shipped, the carrier (we’re going to use UPS as the example) takes care of clearing your package through customs, and then has you reimburse them once you receive your package. The issue here is that the carrier will also charge you a “brokerage fee” for this “service”, which will add a hefty bill on top of the already-steep duty charge. For example, the total bill from UPS on my latest package was $42.00, but of that, the brokerage fee was $11.00 (25%!!!). So in a nutshell, self-clearing essentially helps you avoid these brokerage charges, and pay the duties directly to the Government by yourself, and saving you lots and lots of money.

Once your package has been shipped, you will receive an email with your tracking info. If your package has incurred any duties, you will receive a second email notifying you of this. You can choose to pay this online (don’t), but these snakes don’t even tell you that you can clear the package yourself. Once you are notified that your package has a duty fee attached to it, the first step is to give UPS a call and let them know that you would like to clear your package yourself. Of course, they will try to convince you not to do this, but after you have insisted that you’d like to go this route, they will email you the proper documents in order to do so (a commercial invoice). Your package will then be redirected to the UPS warehouse (right beside Pearson airport if you’re in Toronto).

Wait for your tracking information to update, telling you that your package has arrived at your local holding warehouse. With these documents that UPS has emailed to you, along with your photo ID, head over to the CBSA office (also right beside Pearson airport) and let them know you’d like to clear your package. You will pay your duty taxes like the good Canadian citizen that you are, and the CBSA will stamp your commercial receipt, hereby releasing your package from UPS.

Now that you have that very special stamp, head on over to the UPS warehouse (a whopping 8 minute drive), and present them with the documents you received from the CBSA. You will now be able to sign for your package and take it home with you.

Self-clearing is a great tool to use if you are in close proximity to the airport and you have the ability to drive around and run through all these steps. In truth, it would have probably been easier for me to just pay the extra $11.00 and let UPS ship these to my doorstep, but for the sake of this article I chose to go through the whole process. A 25% fee is absurd, and just imagine if my duty taxes were $200.00 instead of the ultimate $30.00 that I had to pay. I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to DM me on Instagram at @LDoggyStyles.

I want to thank the homies @justkalby and @kingkhamba for the advice and helping me through the process.

First and foremost, I’m a huge fan of the entire StockX interface. The BUY/SELL and OFFER/BID functions are extremely user friendly, and the fact that there is live updates for each size makes it extremely easy to see exactly what the market prices are for the shoes you want.

I purchased my shoes on the same day that they released on the SNRKS app in the EU, and was actually one of the very first to purchase the shoes on the app period. You can either select to purchase for the lowest offer available, or make a bid (an offer). If your bid is accepted, you are automatically inclined to complete the purchase; everything is automatic, and your card is immediately charged. The seller then has two business days to ship your item or they face a penalty. The annoying part about my transaction was that because I bought the shoes on the same day they dropped on SNKRS (which was three days prior to the official in-store releases), no one had the pairs in hand yet. So I had to wait for my seller to physically receive the shoes, and then ship them to StockX for verification. My purchase was made on a Wednesday morning, and I was not notified that the seller had shipped the shoes until Friday evening. This was double annoying because I knew the package was shipping from Europe, which meant it was going to be a long process already.

Once the seller ships, the shoe is sent to the StockX offices, which are in Detroit, and they are authenticated by the StockX team. The team also checks for imperfections, ensures the shoes come with all the extras (laces, hang tag, etc), and make sure the box is in good condition. This process usually takes about one business day, and your shoes are then sent on their way to you. Unlike GOAT, there is no progress map that shows you where your package is, and where it still has to go. StockX notifies you every time a step in the process has been completed, but I liked that GOAT showed you not only where your package is, but also where it still needs to go.

This time around, I chose to have my package shipped directly to my house. I have heard very terrifying stories about duty fees and crazy high import taxes; but once again, for the sake of this article, I wanted to investigate for myself. I received a notification from UPS that my package had incurred import fees (duh), but surprisingly, even on my $300.00 USD + purchase, the charges were only $42.00 CAD. Once again, for the sake of an article, I chose to self-clear my package and save some money, and you can find that article HERE. Self-clearing is an amazing tool that either not many know about, or are not willing to try. StockX actually significantly undervalued my package (they were marked at $200.00 USD), so my import fees were very light. I’m not sure if this is the norm, but $42.00 on top of a purchase is not that unreasonable. In the US, Jordans retail at $200.00, so my thought is that StockX values the shoes at retail price when declaring them to customs, which helps a Canadian buyer out like crazy. GOAT did not do this, they valued my package at the actual purchase price.

My shoes wound up arriving 13 days (9 business days) after the day I purchased them. This is about the amount of time I assumed it would take, and all things considered, and with the amount of miles they travelled, that is not unreasonable. StockX also sends a “VERIFIED AUTHENTIC” hangtag attached to all of the shoes that pass through their office, which is a very nice touch. The tag can only be removed by actually cutting the string that attaches it to the sneaker, so if a StockX tag is on your shoe, it was almost certainly put there by the StockX team themselves.

All in all, if I were to do it again, I think I would choose StockX as my buying platform. The interface is easy to use, and it is vey professionally run. I would also absolutely use self-clearing as a tool to save money on my import fees once again. If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to help out.

Crown is not unlike the other massive pro-am basketball tournaments that have been dominating the summer in other countries. Quai 54, EYBL, even the Drew League have been host to some massive stars over the years, and Toronto’s Crown League is no different. Every Friday night for five weeks straight, 6 teams compete in a round-robin style tournament, which ends with the crowning (yeah) of a champion in the final game of the season. In the past, the tournament has seen the likes of players such as Kelly Olynyk, Norman Powell, Corey Joseph, and Brady Heslip. Toronto’s basketball community is ever-growing, but extremely tight-knit, so you never know who may come ball up.

Although the play on the court is already enough to get excited over, the atmosphere and energy in the building is spectacular all on it’s own. The venue is DJ’d by some of the best MC’s in the city, and has live commentary from Toronto’s own Akil Augustine. If you squeeze several hundred hoop fans into a medium-sized gym, bump some tunes, and add in some world class athletes duking it out for one trophy, you can imagine the result.

Something that started last year and has taken-off like a rocket is Complex Canada’s weekly ‘Style in the Stands‘ report. Every week Complex compiles a list of individuals who showed up and showed out with their kicks and their fit. And while it seems like most people are too cool to admit they want to be featured, when you look at the way people are dressing, you know it’s on their mind. Friday nights at Crown have become the stage for some of the craziest fits in the city; so if you come, come correct.

We just passed the halfway point of the 2018 season, but the best weeks are still yet to come – because it’s playoff time. Week 4 (this week) is the start of semi-final action, and week 5 (next week) is when a champion will be crowned (yeah again). You can RSVP through the link HERE to claim your seat and take in the action – and remember, it is absolutely FREE to get in. The first game of the night tips off at 6:30PM, but arrive early so you can grab that court-side seat. See you there!

The shoe itself has quite an interesting story. The React outsole is molded from one solid slab of foam, and a drill is used to produce the final shape with all it’s crevices. The React foam found on the Element 87 is slightly denser than the cushioning found its running counterpart, the Epic React, so on these you’ll find a less bouncy step, but more support. Add in the fact that they boast a full-length cork insole and you’re dealing with one extremely comfy shoe.

The upper is a futuristic, modern take on a retro runner, the Nike Internationalist, mixed with hits from Nike’s smash-hit performance runner, the Zoom Fly SP. The concept of the shoe was to fuse modern day performance materials and technologies with a classic aesthetic to make something completely new. The upper is nearly completely translucent, which means if you’re like me and own a plethora of funky socks, these are made for you.

Add together the partially hollow outsole and the minimalistic upper and you’ve got one of the lightest and coziest non-performance sneakers you’ve ever worn.

There seems to be a bunch of questions regarding this pair, so we’re going to try and answer as many of them as we can. First of all, they fit true to size. Although they look narrow, they fit like a regular width shoe, and we would recommend purchasing your usual Nike size in these. As previously mentioned, the comfort level is on point. Having tried the original Epic React, we can tell you that these do not measure up to their performance-based counterpart, but they absolutely exceed expectations in terms of comfort on a sportswear sneaker. The tongue and heel, although very pronounced, do not dig in to your skin at all. The tongue is almost ergonomic in that the design actually bends and curves around the ligaments in your ankle that flex while you walk; so there is little to no contact while you take your strides. The quality on the upper seems durable even though the material is quite thin and dainty. The upper is layered where it needs to be to ensure you are reinforced in high impact areas. If you have anymore questions regarding the shoe itself about these please don’t hesitate to hit us up and we will do our best to answer!

Nike appears poised to make the Element 87 one of their crown jewels this year, so be prepared to see multiple new colourways fly on to shelves in the near future. Which means if you missed out on this release, don’t beat yourself up too bad.

One more time, shout out to Nike Toronto for hitting us with a pair of these – they are absolutely killer and they will be heavily broken-in by the time the summer is over.

The event we took part in was a double-hitter; first, some IRL basketball on the Raptors’ old practice court, and then some food and 2K at Real Sports Bar and Grill afterwards. The actual basketball runs were set up in a tournament-style bracket, with the winners taking home box seats to the Raptors 2018/2019 home opener – not bad at all, huh? Each squad was made up of one player Raptors Uprising GC team, and four media members/influencers. Our team put up a solid fight, but in the end, we were bounced in the semi-finals.

Immediately after, we were ushered over to Real Sports where we were treated to a deliciously catered private room, with NBA 2K set-up and ready for us. After the meal we hit the digital court and were quickly introduced to how well these e-sports players really are. We had a fighting chance when we played on the hardwood, but once we were competing on a screen, we were toast.

All of this was centred around the #LOTTOMAXSWISH contest being held by the Raptors Uprising GC and Lotto Max, who are going to send one lucky winner and three friends to NYC to watch the Raptors Uprising GC play in the NBA 2K League live studio. The prize includes round trip airfare, 2 nights’ accommodation, and a chance to meet the entire squad. This contest is so dope, and we know you’d like to enter, so click the link HERE.

Thanks once again to MLSE for the amazing opportunity, and congrats to the Raptors Uprising GC squad on their inaugural season.