Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Hand Held Portable Skate Sharpeners

Hand-held Skate Sharpeners

I usually get my skates sharpened about every 5 or 6 times I play hockey. After about my fourth time out I will usually touch up my skate blades with a sharpening stone, which is basically just a flat file. This takes off the burrs but doesn't really sharpen the blades all that much.

A company called Revol Hockey makes a great portable hand-held skate sharpener called the Raptor.

The Raptor uses ultra hard ceramics that renew your edges by straightening the small burr that was created by using your skates. This produces a new sharp skate edge in much the same way as self-sharpening knives. All you need is two strokes down your blade to sharpen your skates.


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Goalie Skate Sharpening

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Monday, January 3, 2011

Goalie Skate Sharpening Techniques

Goalie Skate Sharpening Techniques

Kevin Woodley at Ingoalmag.com recently wrote a great article called:

Head to toe, equipment a part of Tim Thomas success

In the article Kevin talks about Tim's goalie skate sharpening techniques:
Starting with the bottom, the skates are key to the quickness that has always been key to Thomas’s success. As much as he has added proper leg recoveries and backside butterfly pushes to his arsenal during the last five years (more on that in the above-mentioned article on technique), Thomas recovers to his skates more than anyone in the game not named Brodeur before moving after a save – and usually quicker.

Generating the precision behind these movements – and the power behind pushes that follow, whether into a sprawling headfirst dive like the Save of the Year candidate that earned him this week’s 3 Star nod, or a smooth butterfly slide – are the skates, which Thomas says are custom profiled to a 28-foot radius.

“My hollow is 5/16,” Thomas wrote in an email to InGoal shortly after the game in Toronto on Saturday night. “That’s pretty deep but a lot of NHL goalies are using deeper hollows nowadays. We need it for the big pushes cross crease. I get them sharpened when I have to. I lose edges when hitting the post or sometimes from the sticks of the other team or occasionally my own teammates. Carbon sticks can take an edge off a skate pretty easily. If it’s just an outside edge I usually don’t get them sharpened.”

That’s because even Thomas, for all his wild scrambling, is just like all other goalies in that he only needs that inside edge to push around the ice. And just like all other goalies, he needs to see where he’s going, even if nobody else can sometimes figure out how he’s going to get there. But unlike most other goalies, Thomas played an active role in making sure he can see.

Add that to some pretty impressive feet with some incredibly sharp edges, and there are two more reasons why Thomas is once again the best goaltender in the NHL, and poised to add another Vezina Trophy to the one he won two years ago.

Read the full article at: Head to toe, equipment a part of Tim Thomas success

Related stories:
Goalie Skate Sharpening

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Saturday, January 1, 2011

Bauer One60 Goalie Skate Review

Bauer One60 Goalie Skate Review


The Bauer One60 is their most affordable goalie skate in the Bauer Supreme line. You`ll find many of the same features as the more expensive ONE80 and the ONE100 Pro. The One60 is a great skate if your just starting out in goal, or if you play both out and in goal.

Bauer supreme One60 Features

  • Redesigned lightweight performance cowling
  • Extended 40oz tongue
  • Flex heel tendon collar
  • Vent Ports for airflow
  • 4mm removable stainless steel runner



Sizes:

Senior 6-12.5, full only; D, EE widths
Junior 1-5.5, full only; D, EE widths
Youth 13, D width