I had the great pleasure of meeting with Nike Footwear designers Tobie Hatfield and Alexandre Bauduoin (not to be mistaken with Canadian Olympic gold medallist, Alexandre Bilodeau!) a couple days back. They’re in town for the Games so they showed me the shoes that they designed for a US Women’s Skeleton athlete as well as a curling shoe and some other stuff. While the technologies they’ve introduced in the new winter athletic shoes are all cutting edge and super interesting I was WAY more interested in these boots, the Nike NFB Heaters.

Designed “specifically for the 2010 experience in Canada” and not currently available to the public, they’re obviously inspired by old school Sorels (you had a pair of those, right?) but are super lightweight, have soles that are kinda like Nike Free soles and – get ready for it – each one has a rechargeable battery powered heater in the toe! Kinda like a built in HotShot that lasts up to five hours on a single charge. Take a closer look and you’ll see that there’s a little maple leaf that lights up on the side, on the controller that turns the heater up, down, on and off. I didn’t shoot a photo of it but you plug an adapter directly into the back of them when it’s time to recharge. Definitely looking forward to lacing up a pair of these when they become available!

I’ll be bringing you more from Tobie Hatfield and Alexandre Bauduoin in a couple of days. Don’t forget to drop off your shoes to one of the locations below for the Reuse-A-Shoe drive which we told you about HERE. Your shoes will be recycled into a new playing surface somewhere in the city!

There are dropoff stations at these Nike store locations:
Nike Robson | 1124 Robson Street | Vancouver | 604.683.2221
Nike Metrotown | 1222-4700 Kingsway | Burnaby | 604.430.6453
Nike Richmond | 1592-6551 No. 3 Road | Richmond | 604.276.0015
Nike Park Royal | 4567 Canada Way | Burnaby | 604.276.0015
Nike Kerrisdale | 2120 W. 41st Avenue | Vancouver | 604.264.1246
Nike Oakridge | 650 W. 41st Avenue | Vancouver | 604.267.1972

Learn all about Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe in Vancouver at nikereuseashoe.com/vancouver