Skate Sharpening

If you or your child figure skates or plays hockey you would know that skate sharpening is necessary to get ready for the winter sports season. It can be confusing so here are some sources that would help you through this activity. Furthermore, you will find below some websites that sell skate sharpening machines.

1. Revol Hockey – This website presents a line of skate sharpeners. They have ceramic hand-held skate sharpeners and power skate sharpeners. The skate sharpening products vary in the type of skates it work best with. When you click a particular product, you will access its very own product page. It is safe to say that everything you need to know about a certain product can be found in its product page – picture, information on the special features of the product, how it works and even a quick guide on how to use it. (www.revolhockey.com)
2. SkateNY – SkateNY is purely an informational website about anything ice skating. In the webpage you can access by clicking the link, you will find an informative article about skate sharpening and in one webpage they address the question of as to what to sharpen with, and where and when to sharpen. The article is very concise and easy to follow, thanks to the addition of illustrations and pictures for better understanding. (www.skateny.com)
3. Blademaster – The link will lead you to Blademaster’s official website. Blademaster is a brand of skate sharpening machines. This company is based in Canada. They seem to have only one product model but the amount of information they placed on their site about skate sharpening is somehow sufficient and valuable. You are provided with PDF files of sharpening guides, and a detailed description of their skate sharpening machine. (www.blademaster.ca)
4. Blackstone – This is the official website of Blackstone, another brand of skate sharpening machine. Their products seem to be more high-end as they are expensive. Probably for use by professional hockey teams. Their machines are classified into five, namely: single head machines, double head machines, triple head machines, professional portable machines and X-series portable machines. Every product has its own page containing pictures, specifications and special features of the product. You can readily place an order in their website and they offer free shipping for orders shipped to US and Canada. (www.blackstonesport.com)
5. Gourmet Skates – The article found on this link addresses the frequently asked questions about skate sharpening. If you are a figure skater, this information should be helpful to you. The article is easy to understand and the illustrations should surely be supplemental to understanding the article better. I commend how the article is straight to the point. (gourmetskates.com)
6. Sport-Mate – This website features SkateMate blade sharpeners and they claim it to be the most innovative product on the market to keep your speed skates, tour skates, dance & freestyle skates, figure skates and hockey skates sharp and ready to glide. They have only one model of skate sharpening product, the product description is quite short. More information on how SkateMate works can be found in their FAQ/How To page, including a downloadable usage manual. (www.sport-mate.com)
7. ProSharp – This is a Canada-based manufacturing company for skate sharpening products. They have three machine models on-site and clicking the picture of the machine will display more details about that particular machine. The products in this web shop are only available to customers from North and South America. They claim for their products to be of high-quality and easy to use. Check out their site and their products to see for yourself. (www.prosharp.ca)
8. ProSharp Hockey Skating and Sharpening PDF – This is a PDF source for all things skate sharpening especially with the use of ProSharp products. The article is indeed informative and it enables consumers of the ProSharp products to be more acquainted with the technology used in the skate sharpening machines they are using. Although the article serves and is intended to be an advertisement for ProSharp products, the knowledge that can be derived from reading this source can be helpful to anyone who does skate sharpening, regardless of the product they are using. (www.prosharp.net)
9. Indyspeed.Org: Sharpening your Skates – The fascinating thing about this website is that it is purely informative. It may have a short reference to sharpening rigs found in another website, the information are applicable universally, whatever brand of skate sharpening equipment you are using. The article is well-illustrated and the instructions are easy to follow. Like a crash-course to skate sharpening, you’ll have almost all the information you need to effectively sharpen your skates in one place – that is, on this very PDF source.(www.indyspeed.org)
10. Wissota – This is a manufacturing company for Ice Skate Sharpeners. The website may not be as well-designed as the previous ones featured here but the information on their skate sharpening product is sufficient to make you decide whether you avail it or not. They also feature in this site the features and specifications of their skate sharpener. They also have tutorials that teach their site visitors about skate sharpening concepts such as radius of hollow, even edges, etc. They even provide links for instructional videos on sharpening skates properly. (www.wissota.com)
11. SkateMate Hints – This webpage is supposed to provide information on how to use SkateMate products effectively by expounding on the concept of radius of hollow or ROH. The information on this website may be valuable but the layout of this website plays a role for it to seem uninteresting. The fonts and format make the article look incoherent. Another criticism is that the article doesn’t read very well because of the overly technical terms fed to the readers. (www.skatemate.com)