Special skates for synthetic ice

[AgnesNitt]

For Hockey

This is so weird.

[Query]

Do you happen to know how common Agility blades are on synthetic ice? Is it only the people who are sponsored by the manufacturer who like it?

I'm thinking that figure skating involves control of very small changes of balance position, with respect to the sweet spot. I'm uncertain how well the concept would carry over to the figure skating world.

I just sent the following suggestions to the supplier, rinks@skateanywhere.ca:

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I just saw the Pavel Barber video

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPui4WPj2Pw

It seems like an ingenious product.

But sharpening looks way too hard and time consuming.

A better sharpening tool would allow you to sharpen while the wheels are mounted. Indeed, I think you could use ordinary machine or hand skate sharpening tools to sharpen them

There are at least two ways to do this:

1. Use a cross grind sharpening wheel. Yes, cross-ground edges tend to be asymmetric - but if you grind it a little one way, then flip the orientation of the skate 180 degrees, and do it some more, you can even things out.

2. Use an ordinary wheel or hand tool, that sharpens along the blade, but use braking jigs to slow down the rotation.
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[Leif]

For Hockey

This is so weird.

I'm probably telling you what you already know, so apologies if that is the case, but synthetic ice wears out skate edges much quicker than real ice, and it is more tiring to skate on. These wheels partially solve that problem, namely for forwards and backwards skating. Obviously when doing a hockey stop the wheels will wear out quicker, maybe much quicker since there is less surface in contact with the ice. I guess something similar holds for figure skating turns and other moves. Does he say how often they need to be sharpened?

My concern on seeing these is safety. What happens if you skate over someone's hand with these on?