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.
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.
Since the Flat Bottom V technique was introduced about a year ago, players on over 20 of the N.H.L.'s 30 teams have switched from the traditional sharpening method to FBV.
The list includes Zach Parise of the Devils, Joe Thornton and Rob Blake of the San Jose Sharks, Jason Arnott of the Nashville Predators, Milan Michalek of the Ottawa Senators and Doug Weight of the Islanders.
Conventional skate sharpening uses a grinding stone that creates a concave arc in the bottom of the blade. The FBV method provides a sharper bite on turns and a freer glide in straight-ahead skating.
The flat-bottom V uses specially made spinners to carve out tiny fangs along the skate blade's ridges that bite into the ice for turns. The flat bottom between the fangs, similar to the flat cut of a speedskater's blade, puts more of the blade's surface in contact with the ice and is supposed to increase speed.
2” Radius
The most common choice of Radius of Hollow (ROH) for hockey players is 1/2". According to a recent study of all NHL players 47% choose to skate on a 1/2" ROH. The next most common ROH in the NHL is 5/8" ROH.
The FBV is quite different from the circular hollow. With the flatness of close to a 2” radius, skaters will notice more speed and less drag and they’ll notice the glide is a lot longer. With the FBV, skaters will see a decrease in the number of strides necessary to get from end to end. The result of this combination is more speed and solid edges to bite during turn.
Most skate sharpening machines can be retro-fitted to use the FBV spinner attachment. Contact skate sharpening machine manufactures Blackstone Sports for more info.
As most goalies are butterfly goalies, they are sharpening their skates with deeper hollows than in the past. Most goalies now sharpen their skates with a 5/8", 1/2", or sometimes even a 3/8" hollow. Younger goalies should use a flatter hollow: either 3/4" or 1".
Butterfly goaltending demands a lot of bite for lateral movement, and while it does place extra demands on your legs while shuffling, the ability to sustain a greater angle of attack from skate to ice pays huge dividends when it comes to your butterfly slide, down-pushing, and backside recoveries. It always boils down to personal preference - go with what you're comfortable with.
Here's a closer look at some of the tools used to sharpen Goalie skates.
