- What's up guys?
Jeremy here with The Hockey Movement.
In the first video in this series
we talked about baking your skates
and how that can help alleviate foot pain,
why it's important.
The second video we talked about the insoles
and how that can help alleviate foot pain
if you're still feeling discomfort
after you get the right fitting pair of skates.
In this video we're talking about
profiling your skate blades.
This is something a lot of people
don't really know the details on.
The profile is the shape of your skate blade.
So the blade is not flat.
It's actually a circle
and you can choose how big of a circle
you want basically carved into your skate blade
and that makes a big difference on performance.
You can also choose if you want a forward lean,
a reverse lean or just basically centered.
To some people this might seem a bit nit-picky.
Ah who cares just take 'em to the shop get 'em sharpened.
Well that's how I was for the longest time
and you know I'm an adapter.
I get them done and I learn how to play
but if you want to customize and have more control
over how you feel in your skates
profiling is definitely the way to go.
I learned how big of a difference your skate blades
can have by playing with the Sparx skate sharpener.
If one of these edges is just a hair lower
than the other edge it totally throws off
your skating stride
and we're talking millimeters right there.
So definitely by shaping this deal
I think is gonna have a big difference on your game.
But enough talk I'm sure you guys want to learn more
about what profiling actually is and how it gets done
so I'm gonna grab the camera
we're gonna head down to the shop
and we're gonna talk to Glen Sharpley
from Sharpley Source for Sports.
(urban beat music)
- So Jeremy right now what' I've done
is unlaced your left skate.
I'm gonna do an internal measurement.
The system we use here for contouring is Blackstone.
Blackstone developed this thing 16, 17 years ago.
This exact system for countouring they stopped producing.
People wanted something a little more simple.
- Right.
- We're a little anal
and we think it does a better job.
There's a 60/40 split.
You can see this is much longer than this
and when I go in there I'm gonna open this up
and that's the balance point.
You can see that it's obviously just like our foot.
More of our foot is more forward than back
and so this is all about kinetics in laymen's terms
I'm just setting up your optimum balance point
and I'm gonna sharpen off of that.
I'm gonna take two measurements on each
to make sure I nailed it.
But basically this is now measuring
the balance point of your foot.
Okay? - Yeah.
- And unless you have something erratically wrong
anatomically with you this works.
- Right.
- We've done it for a long time.
We don't get complaints.
There's my first measurement, my first spot
and I'll just mark that.
This should be now my balance point, okay?
And I wanna have my mark there.
I'm just gonna remove that
and I'm gonna do the same for the second boot.
- [Jeremy] For the profile what exactly
- To get a profile somebody's gonna want
a seven foot, a nine foot, 11 foot or 13 foot radius.
That being said what that is,
is if you were to continue to arc on this
a seven foot would be a seven foot circle,
nine would be a nine foot circle,
11 and 13.
- [Jeremy] Okay so the bigger
the circle. - The bigger circle.
The 13 there's more steel on the ice.
More for a longer strider flat wide-open speed.
The 11 would be less the nine would be less and the seven.
- [Jeremy] So the seven is the most extreme.
I guess that's for turning.
- Turning. - [Jeremy] Yup.
- Shorter strider turn on a dime.
These are the different profiles that we offer.
There's your 13, obviously not a big circle.
Progressively moving in 11, nine and seven
and you can see the dramatic difference
on a seven foot radius over the 13.
- [Jeremy] This one you're getting if you want
those tight turns. - That's tight turns yeah.
Most guys today would be using 11 or less.
The days of the 13 are pretty much gone.
I used a 13 I'm using an 11 now.
I just a long stride your legs gotta be really strong
'cuz they're traveling a lot further
and the groin muscle pulls.
Anyway the bottom line is
I'm gonna give you a seven, nine, or 11 foot radius.
I can give you a forward lean or a reverse lean.
- With the lean what are you doing to the blade?
- We have our spot here
and I'm just gonna change slightly the lean on how I cut
that seven foot radius.
Whether it's 'cuz here is my balance point.
I'm gonna marginally change that by half a degree
with the tool that I'm gonna mount this skate into.
A lot of these skates come with 10 and 11 foot radiuses
from the factory but they're just stamped steel
and we have to eventually hand cut some of this.
- [Jeremy] Yeah so you're shaping that steel.
- Yeah at the end.
But right now we're gonna do probably through this
we're gonna give you on three different sets of steel
we're gonna go so you can see the difference.
We're gonna give you an 11 on one set,
a nine on the other and a seven on the last one.
So this goes in here and I center.
- [Jeremy] You're lining up this black dot.
- [Glen] With this pin here.
- [Jeremy] With the pin okay. - [Glen] Yup.
And that's my starting point.
Then I can adjust my forward and reverse lean here.
- [Jeremy] Right there.
And who wants a reverse lean?
- Really funny cuz I can tell you a story even about myself.
I skated in Langes my whole career
and finally had to give them up.
And I picked up a set of Makos.
I'd skate in the Mako too.
Well the Lange's were flat.
And the Mako had a forward lean and I couldn't adjust.
So I started to play games in the shop
and I finally put a reverse lean on it.
And instantly I had the same stance,
the same stability that we all want on the ice
once I put a reverse lean because that's what I was used to.
- Do you find a defense-men like more of a lean to the back
and forwards like it forward? - Ya know
in the old days maybe
but defense men today are rushing.
They're moving the puck.
They're moving up on the play.
You find them in the high slaught all the time.
And they to turn and back-check they don't skate backwards
they skate forward because they're tryin' to catch up
so there's less and less of that now.
Everybody's doin' everybody's job.
- [Jeremy] What happens if someone doesn't do this.
So they bought a brand new pair of skates
and they just get a regular sharpening on 'em.
What happens?
- If you don't know what profile you want
or what contour you want we're just gonna tell you
go skate for a few times and give us your feedback.
What are you feeling on the ice?
Do you feel like you're on your heels?
Do you feel like you're on your toes?
And we can adjust from that.
- So not a complete disaster if you just got 'em
a regular sharpening right out of the box.
- No absolutely not, no.
In fact we'd like to get some feedback
because whatever you're purchasing you're coming out
of something that probably had a seven foot radius
or less because they've been sharpened so much.
I mean you've seen guys that have literally no steel left
on the toe or the heel.
And so that radius compared to what you're leaving with
is gonna you have to get used to it.
It's incredible how little steel you have to take off
of your skate for it
to make a fairly substantial difference.
We find people come in and we'll check the level on them
and one of the issues is that they're not level.
One side of the blade will feel sharp on the ice
and the other will chatter.
And it's because one side of steel is sharper than the other
because they're not level.
Let's get this thing started here.
I'm all set up now this guys' gonna use a nine foot
so I'm gonna go over to the sharpener now.
I'm gonna prepare to put the jig on here
which is my template for a nine foot.
So what we have here is we got rollers and wheels.
Same style holder it just has those other measurements.
And I'm gonna grab a nine foot bar.
This is my nine foot radius.
So my tool my jig here against the template.
Will follow this nine foot against my stone
and that will transfer that radius to my steel.
- [Jeremy] That's how it's done.
I always wondered.
- That's how it's done yeah.
There's no possible way to do this and hand cut a radius.
As much as somebody thinks they might be able to get close
you'd be shocked when you re-do somebody's
how out you would be.
You can see where it's gonna hit
and you can see how close my stone is here and not here.
So we're basically gonna start fresh with the steel
and we're gonna give you a nine foot.
(machine hums)
And even like a regular sharpening Jeremy
we gotta dress our cross grind stone.
(wheel zips)
We talked earlier about the toes and heels being high
when the steel's brand new.
And based on a nine foot radius bar here
you can see my first contact is with the front.
So until I'm making contact with the stone
throughout my pass I will continue to do this
and at that point I'll have a nine foot radius.
(wheel zips)
You don't need to remove a lot of steel.
You're already seeing that I'm making contact
with the center of this.
It's a factory steel.
There are high spots and low spots.
Obviously with contouring we're gonna get rid
of all of that.
As I eat through the steel I'm making an adjustment
to bring my skate more forward
so that I'm making contact throughout my whole pass.
That's what this little dial's doin' here.
Now I'm makin' contact pretty much about 75
or 80% of that steel now.
I'm getting my nine foot circle, my nine foot radius
it's all coming to shape.
I'm gonna stop fairly shortly
and I'm gonna hand-cut the rest so that my heel and toe
are below my nine foot
so that you don't catch your toe and heel.
(blade buzzes)
So I'm pretty happy with this right now.
I can show you get rid of the exhaust fan here.
You can see now we end up with a high spot here
and a high spot here
but this through this whole pass is a nine foot radius.
I'm gonna hand cut that
so it's at least as low as my nine foot
or I'm gonna cut that so it's a little bit lower.
Like-wise on the toe.
To do that I have to take my template off.
We don't need the specialized jig for this.
I'm just gonna make sure that I hit my toe
and I'm lower than my nine.
So cross-grinding does roll the edge
and I'm just gonna remove that rolled edge
before we put sharpen it and give you the final edge.
Okay?
- That should give you guys a pretty good idea
of what profiling can do to effect your performance.
And now that you understand it.
You know what to ask for when you head to the shop.
But how much of a difference does it really make?
Well I plan to find out because Bauer sent me four sets
of blades and the skates have this easy trigger system.
So I just pull right there
and the blade's gonna pop out
and I can pop in a different one.
Glen at the shop has given me four different profiles
that I can test out.
So I'm gonna take 'em on the ice.
I'm gonna skate on one, swap 'em out
skate on the other.
I'll even do a side by side
with a different profile in each skate
and see how much you can really tell the difference.
If you want to see that video
hit the subscribe button.
I make new hockey videos every single week.
Thanks all for watchin' and I'll see ya in the next video.
(rock music)