How to Test Different Profiles with Your Players
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- Опубліковано 1 сер 2024
- Elite's JP O’Connor provides a how-to video for Equipment Managers to share how we, at Elite, work with pro and elite players to help them test different performance profiles on the ice, to find the one that suits them best.
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Great Tutorial
woah that's a lot of blades !
I'm a gear geek and found this video very interesting. I am wondering tho', where does one get to try out different profiles if the club don't have actual templates or pre-profiled steel available, or a similar situation with the local shop(s)? Sending steel off for profiling without testing it out first feels like a big no-no.
I play CCM AS3 Pro skates as a defenseman (mostly), but am a quite offensive defenseman actually, and it feels like I could use some optimization on the blades for tighter cornering. I will add tho' that the blade profile I'm using right now is 3 sets of stock CCM SpeedBlade XS with a stock 10 feet curve (and I use a hollowing radius of 18mm); also, I'm aware that CCM SpeedBlade XS steel apparently is of inferior quality, but it holds up quite well for me. Finally I'll add that I've got STEP steel in the bag as well but found the extra height of the blades quite noticable (I'm 193 cm in height and fancy as low a center of gravity as possible).
What's your recommendation coming from a stock profile as described previously? Should I ditch the stock 10 feet profile straight away or doesn't it really make a difference, now that I'm accustomed to it? (I play ~3 - 4 days a week during season and ~2 days off season).
Thanks in advance, highly appreciated!
Hi Anders,
Sorry for the slow reply. Put it down to the Canada Day holiday!
First off, nothing wrong with your choice of blades if you feel comfortable on them. It is true that the quality of steel on the CCM stock blade is not quite equal to the Step steel (as I am sure you know, Step is now owned by CCM, and their steel is now included with all their top end skates), but it is not one of the really poor blades out there.
As for preferring a less high runner, you are perhaps swimming against the current a bit there but you are certainly not alone. Most pros and elite amateurs skate on higher steel (such as the Step blades) but there are still some exceptions. We have handled the blades of “Jumbo” Joe Thornton for the past couple of seasons, and he is still on the short Bauer LS-2 steel. If they feel better, more power to you.
It can indeed be difficult for a passionate player to try out profiles to find what feels best. Our video here is really aimed at equipment managers of pro and top amateur teams, who own our profiling machine and can produce sample blades for their players to try. At our home base near Montreal we operate a pro shop which serves the public, and we have probably a couple of hundred pairs of sample blades which players can borrow to take out and test on the ice. A lot of clients take advantage of this, although some simply say “I want whatever Player XXX is skating on” and seem quite happy with the results.
I don’t know that I can really give any meaningful advice about what profile you should use. I might suggest that you give your Step blades a try - these have a base profile of 9.5/10.5, which has some mild forward pitch and is a very popular profile among NHL players. My own feeling is that this is noticeably better than a 10-foot mono, FWIW, but you will need to decide for yourself. If you find you like them, perhaps you will want to explore some more “dramatic” profiles.
Might I ask where you located? You gave your height and ROH in metric measures, so might I guess in Europe somewhere? We are actually just working on our first sale of equipment into Europe, so for now I can’t point you to an Elite centre. But ProSharp has been around Europe for quite some time, so I imagine you could find a shop offering their profiles. If you like the feel of the Step profile (if you can separate that from the feel of the higher blade), perhaps you could try something like a one of their lighter quads (a Quad Zero, for example, at 6-9-11-13) and see how that feels.
Sorry couldn’t be of more help. You are always welcome to visit us in Montreal and give it the full test!
All the best.
There seems to be a new wave of high level skating coaches working with professional and Olympic hockey players that advocate for 13’ neutral profile as the sweet spot for stability and agility. While this is unconventional it seems to be gaining a lot of momentum. What are your thoughts on it? Thanks!
Interesting comment. What is your source on 13’ neutral wave?
I understand that many pros use a center glide profile, but I have a hard time understanding the benefits of a heel rocker. From my understanding you want stability in that area and to never fall backwards. When you stand up and glide a lot of weight is on the back half of the blade. Figure skaters have a long and flat heel for that same reason.
Hi Alex. Thanks for your comment. Let me address this in two ways.
You are absolutely right that you want stability in the rear portion of your blade, which is why it is so important not to let poor sharpening turn that section into a banana. But unlike figure skating blades, all hockey blades have a dramatically more curved transition section in the heel which allow for aggressive pivoting. This section has a tight radius curve measured in inches, not feet. Without this transition zone, players describe feeling like they are caught in railway tracks. This is true of all hockey blades, whether stock blades or blades with custom profiles.
This is different from what we mean when we speak about the more “rockered” sections in the front and back Center Glide profiles. In these profiles the mid-foot section contains the flattest radius curves, with somewhat more rounded radius curves in front and behind the flatter mid-foot. These give you very smooth transitions forward and back from the mid-foot, but overall they remain very stable. No bananas here!
Thanks.
@@elitebladeperformancetechn5103
Thank you for the response and clarification.
My experience has been mostly on a 9.5/10.5 combo and 1/32 pitch forward and sometimes an 11ft profile. I spoke to my skate sharpener and how I wanted more stability and speed. We decided to try a center glide profile of 25/50. The result was a more stability, but I felt stuck to the ice, rockered backwards (was my feeling) and transition skating forwards and backwards was not great. After reviewing it with my skate sharpener, it looked like the heel had a very sharp radius which resulted in me slipping out on the ice. I asked my sharpener if we should have reprofiled the blades to something basic and then add the flat center, but he said that was not necessary. I am kind of looking for a suggestion and a best practice advice too (educating the customer).
Background info: I am an advanced 41-year-old skater using size 288 at 230lbs
Thank you in advance.
@@acsh81 Hi again, Alex.
Okay, let me ask a couple of quick things to start. If with your pro shop you decided on an 25/50 profile, it sounds like you were profiled on a CAG-One machine. These were one of the first profiling machines on the market and were quite popular with many NHL and other top level players. The CAG works by putting a flat section (not a flatter radius curve,but an actual flat or infinite radius curve) somewhere near the middle of the blade, and leaves the rest of the blade with whatever shape it had to start. Their code (in your case 25/50) tells you that the flat section overall is 50mm long and that 25mm of that flat is ahead of the midpoint of the blade. That would be considered a neutral pitch profile in the CAG world. A 35/50, for example, would have 35mm of the 50mm total ahead of the midpoint, and would be considered an example of a forward pitched CAG profile.
So, based only on this one piece of information, I can make the following speculative comments. If you are used to skating on a 9.5/10.5 profile (which already has a bit of pitch built into it), plus you had that pitched 1/32 more forward (not an extreme pitch, but pretty solid lean) it is very possible that switching to a neutral pitch CAG profile might leave you feeling pitched backwards. Certainly it would take some time to get used to the new feel, and maybe it just doesn’t suit your skating style.
To your comment about transition from forwards and backwards skating not being great, and having acknowledged that many pros have used the CAG profiles, I share your feeling about this style of profile. To me it felt that it always wanted to sit in the middle, and I had to work to get to the front and back portions of the blade. I actually skate now on one of our SCS family profiles, which has two relatively flat radius sections in the mid foot (but not completely flat like a CAG), and somewhat more rockered radius sections ahead and behind the mid foot radii. The principle is the same as CAG (balance point mid foot, lots of blade to glide), but I find the transitions across the blade smoother.
To your last point about about slipping out, a CAG shouldn’t cause that problem. If you started with a 10 foot mono blade, for example,after profiling the only change should have been that flat added in the middle. So if you are seeing a really sharp radius in the heel, sounds like either you started with blades that were “banana’ed” by bad sharpening or your pro shop perhaps decided to customize your ends?
I will make one last comment. That “transition” zone I spoke about in the first post is the area most vulnerable to being distorted by bad sharpening. It is extremely easy to take too much steel off in these areas and lose the shape of the transition. When this happens, the phenomenon of slipping out (as you described it) is very common. Unfortunately once that steel is gone it can’t be put back, so reproducing the blade before putting a CAG in the middle would not do too much good. Probably better to start with some fresh runners.
FYI I also skate on 288, but you have 45 pounds on me. Glad I haven’t met you in the corners! 😁
All hocus pokis. If your a sick player, your a sick player. Also when some hack at Peranis sharpens your blades, oops profile messed up! Nobody over the age of 35 needs a profile. Center is perfect. If you’re bag has wheels, you probably don’t!!
Disagree everyone can benefit from balance ,. I do agree that 3 and 4 radius are smoke and mirrors. In the end it is a good idea for a player to try different work radius
To see what works for them the best. Not a fan of profiling just the blades though, often how the steel seats in the holder can induce and backward pitch effecting the profiled blade.
The Brad is a fae troll.