Getting Older and Stiffer

[MeHateHe]

It's something that didn't cross my mind much until I knew what it actually was, around the time I started officiating. I had always just taken my skates to the pro shop at the rink where I was about to play and I think they defaulted to 1/2" if you didn't specify. I tried out 3/4" and it made a world of difference. I even went up to 1" for extra glide which is more helpful as an official, since I was doing more officiating than playing.

For reference, this was in the Phoenix area where the ice tends to be on the soft side.

As a ref, I never got my skates sharpened more than twice a season after I moved to Vancouver Island, precisely because the ice was so soft. If my blades were too sharp, I found it reduced my ability to move laterally and because I was refereeing about 90% of the games I was working, I was more likely to be working deep in the endzone, near the corners and nets, so gliding was not part of my repertoire.