About Us
Our owner has played hockey since he was 8 yrs old. While in the military he was stationed at various locations across the country and got frustrated that he just couldn't get the same quality sharpening he could from his favorite shop in New England. In 1991, while stationed in Dallas, he discovered a guy who sharpened skates out of his home, a guy who not only did a great job but who also offered custom personalized sharpening. Something Bob never had or heard of, but knew this was exactly what he needed! Soon after, Bob became a home sharpener himself and honed his skills on his teammates and friends. After scoring an old Dupliskate Radius machine, he then ventured into the wonderful world of skate radius.
Prior to retiring from the military in 2003, Bob and Anita opened a small shop part time with the intent for it to just supplement his income until he found post-military employment. Little did he know, NH and Mass were starving for a good sharpener, someone better than the rotating teenagers sharpening at the chain stores, and someone who offered more choices than just a "regular" sharpening. Their business exploded and within a year they had to move to a bigger location. In three more years, the customer base had grown so large that another move was necessary.
While their retail store was growing, so was their Sharpen By Mail Service. Its early roots began from past teammates who missed Bob's sharpenings asking him if they could send him their skates. That soon spread to their friends, then friends of friends, and by word of mouth. Before you knew it they had to accommodate their business to support this growing online demand. At first, evaluations and orders were taken by phone. That soon became overwhelming as they found themselves on the phone all day and weren't able to get any work accomplished. So, the website www.noicingsports.com was created to handle that new and growing part of the business. It was remarkable how they grew from a few teammates sending by mail to thousands of customers all across North America and the world sending their blades in for custom services. They quickly established themselves as the premier online custom skate sharpening shop. A lot of businesses pay to get good Google results but their high rankings came solely from the pure number of hits and linkings to their website.
Over the years customers had called Bob a lot of different names, Skate Doctor, The Master, The Skate Guru, etc. One customer called them the "Skate Rescue Service" because they fixed his skates that had been butchered by a chain store. This name stuck and the business was split with No-Icing Sports as the retail store and www.SkateRescueService.com becoming their online store.
Our shop dog "CZ" waiting to greet customers
Our Vision.
Our goal is simple, it is to make you or your children better skaters and hockey players. When you think of a pro shop your expectation is that they are experts and can help you improve your game. That's our focus. Yes, making money is important, but we could also do that too by just doing what the other hockey shops do, only offering a couple of choices and hiring inexperienced kids to do the sharpenings. To quote Sailor Jerry,....
"Good work ain't cheap, cheap work ain't good"
Our Location.
We moved from our Hudson location to Bridgewater, NH. Next to Bristol and Plymouth. Come see us! Email us for an appointment.