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I will now tell you the ultimate cheap parent skating story.There was a teen at my old rink who's parents did buy her skates. But they wouldn't let her use skate guards EXCEPT IN THE BAG, because they were afraid she would wear them out.Yes that's the guards, not the soakers. On the other hand, they did buy her skates and would come and watch her, so they weren't awful
So they were rusting the blades in the bag and ruining the blades while she walked around to protect the $12 plastic guards??
Plus, people leave them out for the taking almost every session!Oh what? Those aren't actually free guards? Could someone please tell that to whomever keeps stealing mine??? They have my name on them for goodness sakes! (But it's not like it's hard to remove sharpie...just get some nail polish remover)
I know!! My daughter has lost several pairs like that and she has an unusual first name too... I mean are they that expensive an item worth trying to get a name off for??
They obviously did not get why a skater needs hard guards to begin with... they protect the blades! They were likely spending more on sharpening their daughter's skates because she wasn't allowed to wear her guards. I don't get the logic in that. At our rink, a sharpening costs 7.00. That is the same price as a new pair of guards at our rink. Interesting!
We have a ton of LTS kids who have soakers and use them...put their hard guards on to put their skates on and then before they go to the ice, take the guards off and put them in their bag before they get on the ice....'doh!
The majority of people at our rink (me too!) only wear guards when walking up to the food court (in a mall, so not padded)- they run around on the black mats without guards. The only time I can think of people wearing guards is high level skaters before competition. Out of competition season, even they don't wear them much.One boy doesn't have guards and walks on his toe picks everywhere he goes on the mats. That must be a pain!
Once you make them pay for replacement guards and for sharpenings out of their own cash (which is earned by themselves) - you lose less guards and you find them used more Biggest thing we have to remember, now that they last longer than the one month we used to have before we had them lost, is to clean them out to avoid having nasty bits of grit grinding on the blades.
I heard (read somewhere?) you can put them in the dishwasher? I just whack them on the floor before I put them on.....to knock the water out.
I get enough life out of each sharpening that it does not matter as much. Too many horror stories of people stepping on the ice with the hard guards and breaking various body parts
Once you make them pay for replacement guards and for sharpenings out of their own cash (which is earned by themselves) - you lose less guards and you find them used more