Oh that pesky Wayne Gretzky. Throwing his money at something that will actually make ALL players skate faster just shows the man has never been hit by a 220-pound goon skating eleventy billion miles a second in his life.
 

Five minutes of research will tell you that this product will not increase a player's top speed.

given the safety and ice concerns. Making ice even more watery will likely lead to problematic ice conditions which lead to groin injuries, etc etc etc...

Time for a physics/chemistry lesson. You don't skate on ice, you skate on water. Every time your blade glides on the ice, the downward pressure melts a thin layer and creates the water that allows the blade to move with limited friction. Once the blade loses contact with that water (ie player moves) that thin layer immediately freezes again. So, your theory that players will be swimming on the ice because of 20 heated blades is without merit.

Also, poor ice conditions which lead to injuries are not a product of watery ice, but ice that is either too soft (lots of shavings, large ruts) or too hard (sticky ice that loses large chunks). The addition of 20, five degree blades isn't going to push places like MSG or Phoenix over the top when it comes to poor ice, particularly when the temperature in the arena is 20+ degrees.

I also believe that this introduces a mechanical element to the game
Wrong
that should NEVER be allowed.
Agreed. Once again, a little research (like say, looking at the picture in your own post) would tell you that there aren't any mechanics involved in this product whatsoever. No moving parts, the player still has to move his feet.


At the very base of hockey, you have players with inanimate padding and sticks. None of these devices is mechanical, and all depend on the skill of the player using them. You might have graphite/metal sticks, but they do nothing by themselves. Heated skate blades add an element of 'assistance' that is just not natural.

Do these blades move by themselves? I didn't know that Graphite/Kevlar composite materials were natural in this world. Is that something that grows in the southern hemisphere? If you want natural hockey lets go back to wooden sticks and straight blades.

The reality is, this product may help your glide, stops and turns, but you still have to be able to do those things on your own, and do them extremely well to make it to the big leagues. I see no difference between this product and the numerous other technologies being used in the NHL right now.

How about allowing sticks to have mini-springs inside, allowing for faster shots?
Those already exist, they're called composite sticks and they are one big spring. Notice how everyone can shoot the puck hard nowadays?

Fact is, players do different things to give them an edge (no pun intended). For instance, Mike Modano likes to keep his skates relitively dull because he thinks it helps him glide faster. Should the league be instituting a standard skate sharpening practice in the name of player safety of the integrity of the game? Let's get real.

We wouldn't expect them to make the right call, would we?
Well, I expect them to do more research than you (meaning at least some, on top of the twenty years done by the manufacturer) before they make their decision.
 

I listened to the president of the company that makes these Thermablades, along with an Olympic Skater (figure skater I think) to talk about the new blades on Fan 590.

They said that they don't heat the ice, but they reduce friction, much like a sweeper does on the ice during a curling game.

They don't make skaters faster, but they make it faster to get to their top speed. It's less work to stop, turn and get to your stride. According to the players that they've been trying them on (junior hockey players, including P.J. Stock, to bush league players) they say that their legs don't hurt the next day. They said that at the end of the period, particularly the third, they don't feel the snow on the ice and it's not an effort to skate.

They are currently $399.00 (I'm assuming Canadian, since the show was recorded in Canada) for a pair of blades sans boot. They didn't give prices for replacement batteries because they said that it's such a new product that they haven't figured it out yet.

This is not a poor man's skate, that's for sure.

- desdemona
 

Wow. realityczech is taking this blog way too seriously. Lighten up man, it's freakin Jes Golbez.

That having been said, we are all agreeing on the same thing: an athelete shouldn't step onto the ice with any form of stored potential energy other his own. No battery packs, no compressed air tanks, nothing nukooler.
 

I don't care about doing research. This, to me, will not increase anyone's interest in the sport. Why don't we turn off gravity next? That way Ovechkin will use less force when skating through the neutral zone.

I'm a seller.
 

whatever the nhl does they do, it will probably be declined by the nhl if they have brains. if not it will take someone to die from such a hard hit (resulting from the skate speed) for it to be band