In the equipment-centric world that is hockey, perhaps nobit of gear is as important as your skate blades. The wrong hockey skate bladescan make you work too hard, tire too easily, move too slowly or wobble toooften. Thebest hockey skates have blades that make you feel kinetic and connected.
Choices are many. Which skate blades are right for you?
Know the Shape You’reIn
Skate profiling, or contouring, is altering the shape of theblade lengthwise. This impacts the radius of the blade, which is to say howmuch of the blade contacts the ice at any given time. The flatter the blade(the less “rock” it has from heel to toe), the more stable the skater.
It’s not the same asskate sharpening. Sharpening deals with thedepth of the hollow — the space between the two edges — of your skate blades.
For profiling, think of the blade as a segment of a circle.Radius measurements for hockey blades range from 7 feet to 13 feet, which is tosay that if you constructed a circle from 7-foot-radius blades laid end to end,you’d end up with a 7-foot circle.
The larger the radius, the better the straight line, top-endspeed and stability. The shorter the radius, the better the maneuverability.The blade can also be contoured with a forward lean or a backward lean — theformer enhancing speed, the latter stability.
The Steel Deal
More than two-thirds of NHL players wearBauer skates. Someof those players may use aftermarket blades (more on those in a bit), but whenBauer introduces a new runner, it’s usually a big deal. The LIGHTSPEED 5 CarbonEDGE, new for 2018, is no exception. Coming on the heels of the LS3 and LS4blades, the LS5 is billed as having a softer inner of stainless steel designedfor enhancing edge sharpness, and a carbon coating that promotes edge retentionand bite. Bauer suggests you go to a flatter radius and a shallower hollow whenmoving up to the LS5, so drastic is the difference in sharpness and bite overolder blades. A Bauer/NHL study showed players reduce their hollow whenswitching to the LS5.
CCM puts carbon-coated Speedblade Black runners on the topmodels in its Super Tacks and Ribcor lines, and the Speedblade Hyperglide Steelblade, promoting better speed and longer edge life, on its lightweight JetSpeedskate. Both blades have been successful for CCM, which has kept them in thelineup for several years. Both sharpen easily, bite well and stand up to abusebetter than most.
True has one skate in the NHL, but it isworn by 11 percent of the league’s players — and its Pro Custom skates come equipped with StepSteel blades. Step has been making after-market blades since 2005, and is knownfor its high-grade steel and exceptional quality control. The Velocity Steel,polished to a mirror finish, and Black Steel, sandwiched with layers of carbonnanoparticles, are later additions to the line, the former instigating and thelatter latching onto the latest industry trends.
Among the other after-market hockey blades are:
The Latest and Greatest?
When the Washington Capitals won the 2018Stanley Cup, more than half their roster was skating on Bladetech Burner Blades.Founded in 2013, the company came up with what is essentially a spring-loadedblade that compresses in the heel and the start of a stride, and releases thatenergy through the push-off. Bladetech counts more than 50 players across 12NHL teams on its endorsem*nt roster.
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