Funny or scary skate stories

[jjane45]

With so many knowledgeable members DIY-ing their skates, there must be tons of interesting stuff going on. Anything goes! Buying, (mis)fitting, breaking in, decorating, messing around, exchanging, retiring...

I got my first pair ever ice skates off eBay without knowing skate size is different than street shoe size. Magically it fitted. I attended a skating lesson casually, had to tip-toe across the rink, and the blades came loose from the boots consequently. They were GLUED back and lasted another winter or two for recreational outdoor skating!!!!!!!!!!! When it's time to do the glue work again, I received a pair of recreational skates and those carried me through LTS lessons.

Horror story on breaking in my Jackson Classique: despite buying used the skates still hurt badly. I searched for tips on breaking in and decided to SLEEP with the skates on in addition to walking. Woke up in the middle of night because my feet froze. LOL not a good idea!

[Isk8NYC]

My first purchase from eBay was a pair of $15 Reidell Gold Star skates for my oldest daughter. 

The skates that arrived had no resemblence to Gold Stars.  The boot uppers were thin and floppy, there was no padding/cushioning and the no-name blades were riveted onto the plastic bottoms.  Totally useless for a freestyle skater.

Either they were really, really old or they were in the wrong (labeled) box.

It was a valuable experience though, since I learned what to ask/look for online. 
I still prefer a reliable pro shop though.

[Kim to the Max]

I had this amazing pair of not-custom-for-me Harlick boots that were my very first pair of skates. They were at the skate shop and they happened to fit me PERFECTLY! I loved those skates!!

My father took complete pride in polishing them, repainting the soles black (all the rage in the 90's) and maintaining them. Well, eventually, because they were old, the soles started to crack. Now, the uppers were still perfectly fine, and don't forget, I LOVED these skates. My father, being the resourceful man that he was...epoxied the soles together. Not just glue....epoxy! Those weren't going anywhere and you couldn't tell the difference. I ended up getting a new pair shortly after that, but those skates were well loved.

A scary situation was when I got a new pair of skates (can't remember if they were SP-Teri or Harlick), I was breaking them in and had worn them 2-3 times on the ice. I did a jump and pop...one of the hooks came out. I remember taking them to a shoe repair shop and them looking at us like we were crazy. We had to send the skates back to the manufacturer to get the hook put back in.

[FigureSpins]

I have a student who just bought new skates.  Her mom wants to sell the old pair to another skater,  but the girl doesn't want to part with them.  They weren't her first pair of skates.  She really didn't want to wear/break in the old skates when they were first purchased; her coach had to insist.  They were tight from the time she first started using them.  She really likes the new skates.  I don't get it.

They're really good skates: all-leather Riedell competitive freestyle boots with Coronation Ace blades.  The mom paid like $500-600 for them.  To me, it would be better for the skates to be used rather than sit and rust.  Maybe she'll change her mind.

Now I understand why people buy department-store cheap skates to use for autographs at competitions and shows.  It's so sensible.

[Sierra]

This is a while ago, when my skates were just a few weeks old. I laced up my skates as normal and headed out to warm up for my group lesson. Midway around the rink, my left skate suddenly wobbled and felt extremely loose- upon inspection, the laces had all popped off the hooks, leaving me with no way to skate off the ice surface. I pulled myself along the wall to get off and retie (as I did not have good power pulls at the time).

Now I go over-under instead of under-over when lacing. It crosses the lace right at the hook, helping to prevent a pop-off.

[Petlover]

When I bought new skates last year, I did everything wrong according to my coach and friends.  I had Klingbeil use my 10 year old measurements for the new custom skates, had them buy and mount the new blades (MK pros, same as on my old skates, but the old blades were about worn out), and did everything by email.  I also did not even consider other skate brands because my first pair of custom Klingbeils had lasted 10 years and I was used to them.

I am so lucky - the skates fit perfectly and the blades were mounted perfectly and sharpened perfectly.  After my first hour on the ice in them, I was doing jumps and spins and loving the support the skates gave me.

Like I said, I was very lucky, it could easily have been a disaster .  And a year later I still love my skates.

[TheAquarian]

This is a cross between funny and horror if you have a dark sense of humor.

A couple of weeks ago I took my first fall which resulted in an open wound, however somehow I didn't notice the stream of blood  trickling down my leg for over 45 minutes.  Apparently when I groggily caught my toe pick and belly flopped that morning I managed to slash my right shin with my left blade without noticing.  My skates are quite new and the blades are sharp.  When I took my skates off at the end of my 2nd session I discovered a diagonal cut that was about 8 inches long on the front of my leg.

When I saw it I actually laughed because I only fell once  and I couldn't believe I'd been so oblivious for so long.

The real horror story is that I put a small hole in my favorite practice pants.      Damn it.   They were only 2 weeks old at the time too.

[FigureSpins]

When I was an ISI FS 5/6 skater, I used to train at a NJ rink with two sheets of ice.  One year, I suddenly had friends asking me if I was in a bad mood earlier in the week or if something was wrong.  I'm a bit spacy, so I didn't think much of it at the time.  I figured I probably was grumpy or oblivious, which came across as rude.

Until one day, two of my best skating buddies grabbed my arm as I walked into the freestyle rink.  "You have GOT to see this!" they said, pulling me over to the other rink, where a public session was going on.  They pointed out a woman who looked EXACTLY like me!  She was a beginner, but the resemblence was uncanny.

The other person said "Oh, now I understand why people keep calling me () and asking if I'm injured!" 
She used to joke about getting a t-shirt made that said "I'm not (my name)!"
When we skated in different events at the same competition, people would ask if we were twins or if I was sandbagging, lol.

She's still skating and I'm sure she's surpassed me by this point.

[Sk8Dreams]

This is a cross between funny and horror if you have a dark sense of humor.

A couple of weeks ago I took my first fall which resulted in an open wound, however somehow I didn't notice the stream of blood  trickling down my leg for over 45 minutes.  Apparently when I groggily caught my toe pick and belly flopped that morning I managed to slash my right shin with my left blade without noticing.  My skates are quite new and the blades are sharp.  When I took my skates off at the end of my 2nd session I discovered a diagonal cut that was about 8 inches long on the front of my leg.

When I saw it I actually laughed because I only fell once  and I couldn't believe I'd been so oblivious for so long.

The real horror story is that I put a small hole in my favorite practice pants.      Damn it.   They were only 2 weeks old at the time too.

This is actually fairly common - both parts, getting cut and not knowing, and caring more about cutting favorite pants.  Something about ice skating, probably the cold, keeps people from realizing they have cut themselves.  I know of a young child who split her chin open and was obliviously skating around leaving a trail of blood.  She got 18 stitches, and the parents put her in a hockey helmet with chin guard after that.

Years ago I was doing the Pre-Pre back outside edge pattern on a freestyle session, and watching out for other skaters.  One of the coaches was doing spirals with a young student, and had her doing the spiral underneath said coach, like you might see in pairs.  They were also watching, but somehow we didn't see each other, and they crashed right into me.  We all went down, and they rolled over me.  Amazingly, no one was hurt and we all "fell all over ourselves" apologizing .

[Bill_S]

This is definitely a scary story,

In the late 1960's, everyone had figure skates and skated on frozen ponds in my hometown. Being the rugged outdoor type, I also liked the toe picks because they helped you get up the frozen bank at the pond's edge.

I was 19 years old at the time. Some of us were playing impromptu hockey on the pond using broken branches and a squashed can for sticks and a puck. None of us were exceptionally skill skaters.

One acquaintance opposite me started to fall, and I tried to stop. I lost control, my feet went out from under me, and my toe picks whipped upward and hit him in the face on his way down. My toe picks went through his lip and broke off his two front teeth at the gum line.

There was blood everywhere. We found his teeth on the ice, gave them to him, and he drove himself home.

I never learned what happened to him afterward. I still feel really awful the whole mess.

There are probably several morals to this story, and you can draw your own from this unfortunate incident.

Oh, it still makes me cringe to write this.

[FigureSpins]

I used to skate at Ice World in Totowa, NJ.  I rarely went to the morning sessions because of my commute and school/work schedules, but one day I went to an 8am freestyle session.  The NJ Devils were practicing on one rink, but I had the entire second rink to myself.  I warmed up and then started practicing landing positions and spirals at the far end when WHAM! -- I hit something!   

The "something" turned out to be a woman in her 60's with whom I had skated a few times before.  She had opened the far end's closed rink door and started to skate backwards.   I didn't know she was on the ice and she never saw me coming until we collided.

I kept her on her feet while I sprawled across the ice.  As a 20-something, all I could think of was not letting this woman break a hip because I wasn't looking where I was going.  When we stopped moving, I got up and apologized, as did she.  As she skated away, I saw a trail of blood drops - my blade had clipped her calf right above the top of her skate.  She didn't know that she was bleeding - it just felt cold, she said.  I was moving pretty fast, so it was a deep cut.  Fortunately, the Devils' trainer came and gave her first aid.  Her friend took her to the hospital for stitches.

She was back a few weeks later and we both apologized again.  She insisted that it was her fault for not using the open door and not letting me know she was there.  Biggest regret?  The trainer cut her boot a little when sliced the laces to ease off the boot.  No one thought to dry them so she had a lot of rust on the blades when she finally asked about her skates a week later.  I paid for her sharpening because I just felt so sick about the whole thing.