Why us?
At No-Icing Sports, we don't charge you anything extra for our personalized sharpening services. A customized sharpening is as low as $7.00, same price as most pro shops and arenas charge for their generic service. In addition, we don't charge extra for deep hollows or goalie skates like some shops do. As for grind quality, we don't use cheap grinding stones to cut our costs. We use the most expensive stones available which produce a clean superior finish. A smooth finish increases your glide and speed. We also clean the stone of metal shavings from the last customer's skates for EVERY new customer. Some shops cheat and try to get as many sharpenings as they can before they clean their stones. Why do they do this, well, to save money, stone wear, and time of course. But what you end up getting is an inferior finish on the blade, and this causes drag. If you are not one of our customers yet, do this examination... look at the bottom of your blade. If you can see skip marks, waves, brown or blue colors, or any other markings, then you have a poor finish. It should look nice and smooth with a mostly satin finish. If not, then you aren't getting the speed or performance you should out of your skates. Visit us, we can fix that for you!
Our shop is equipped with a mix of 15 different skate sharpeners and radius/profiling shapers. This allows us to select the right machine for the job, be it a CAG radius or a QUAD combo, a hollow sharpening or an FBV. Our machines are calibrated daily and meticulously maintained by the manufacturers and kept in top mechanical condition. We've even gone as far to replace the ball bearings in our motors with needle bearings to reduce vibrations and to obtain a smoother cut.
Many ask us what model sharpeners we use or what so-called "method" we follow. Our answer is this, it's not the brand machines we use that gives you a perfect sharpening, it's our process and attention to detail. Some competitors have sent their spy's down to see what machines we use, then after spending thousands of dollars copying us, they still end up sharpening the skates just as poorly as before. We find it quite amusing. It's not the machine, it's the experienced human that operates it that makes the difference. Our owner has developed his own process based on years of experience and having performed hundreds of thousands of sharpenings and custom radius's. He has also collected and recorded data and analysis on each skater and the results used to perfect his methodology.
Before you walk out our door, or we ship your blades, we check and verify the skates for proper grind and squareness. Rest assured, we will do your skates the same way, every time. This is very important. Our sharpeners aren't barely trained retail clerks who work one day in the baseball dept, and the next sharpening your skates. At No-Icing, unlike other shops, you don't have to plan your visit when the "good" sharpener is there. The good sharpener is always here!
Our goal is to consistently provide top quality service. We are certain, if you try us, you'll make us your FAVORITE sharpener!
Bob sharpening skates for a charity tournament, 2008
Other hockey stores and rink pro shops don't put same emphasis on custom sharpening like we do. Most hire teenagers or folks off the street as skates sharpeners, then only give them an hour or two of rushed training before they get to sharpen YOUR skates unsupervised. One of the huge internet superstores opened nearby, it seems like they have have a revolving door of new sharpeners every couple of months. Another local shop bought a radius machine and the next day took out an ad in the hockey news claiming to be radius experts. I can't even tell you how many customers I have seen who have had their skates ruined by these folks. Others claim to be so-called "certified" skate sharpeners. What they don't tell you is that their "certification" consisted of about 15 minutes of actually using a skate sharpener. One New England DIV 1 college sent their folks for this "certification", then had to ask us if we'd train them.
Only a few skate sharpeners can really be considered full-time professionals. A professional skate sharpener will have tens of thousands of skate sharpenings behind them and will have a complex knowledge of metallurgy, steel alloys, skate blade design, heat treating, as well as being a hockey player themselves. We've personally tested the realm of hollows and radius's that we offer to you and we have a pretty good idea exactly how they feel and perform. That's a professional sharpener. That's what you get when you visit No-Icing Sports. Oh yea, if you don't think sharpening is important, just ask Ray Martyniuk, the only 1st round NHL draft pick to not make it to the NHL, why he didn't.
