All players can benefit from Profiling. As  said earlier, about 99% of blade's radius's are mismatched, so just simply grinding the same radius and lie to the blades, the skater will achieve better performance. Kind of like getting a front end alignment in your car.  But wait, even more performance can also be achieved!  We all know there are four aspects of skating; acceleration, stopping, gliding and turns. How your blades are shaped effects your performance in each one of those stages. Your "style" and personal preferences will determine how the skate's blades should be shaped.

Real young players (ages 5-12) and new skaters will benefit the most with a performance profile as they have not had to compensate body positioning and movements to make up for an improper radius and lie. In more simpler terms, they haven't developed bad habits yet.  We want to keep it that way. Their bodies will adjust quickly to the radius's proper body positioning and they will reap huge benefits as they develop their skating skills.

Any level of skater can benefit from skate profiling/balancing, but it is the "Terminal Intermediate" who will reap the most rewards from the process. Chances are this skater can't seem to get better no matter how many lessons they take or how much new equipment they buy. This skater is likely not bio-mechanically capable of getting the performance they can out of the skate. That's where profiling comes in. In addition, older skaters have bad habits and poor hockey stance that profiling can correct. For some, it may take a little time for their body to adjust but once it does, full performance gains can be achieved. The transition from non-profiled to profiled is really no more awkward than when you first skate on a new pair of skates. Most adult customers report that it takes one or two skates to adjust, youths even less. But virtually all say they are skating better.

GOALIES, we can profile your skates too! In fact, of all skates, goalies need a profiling the most.  They are extremely flat and just don't work well out of the box for a modern butterfly goalie. We can fine tune your skates for skating performance including better agility around the net,  a comfortable balance and stance, and best of all to take away that "flat" feeling for great pivoting. Also a proper skate sharpening will help achieve powerful pushes, crisp slide stops and also give you the extra confidence to leave the crease to beat that opposing player to the puck!  Talk with us about the different options available.

Lastly, be wary of shops that try to radius radius freehand, that's not radiusing, that's guessing. Only way to radius is with a precision template guide. Also many shops  will just offer limited choices like  9, 11 and 13' , or just 28' for goalies.  What if 10 or a Combination is your "sweet spot", if they don't offer it, you're missing out on the increased performance you deserve. Since the proper radius is selected based on many factors, including skate blade size, shops with just a few few options may not be able to grind the proper radius for your skates. For example, a junior skate may need a 6' or 7' radius, because it's blade is much shorter than the adult skates. If the closest option offered is 9', the player is going to have too much blade touching the ice in proportion to blade size. Same applies to the larger adult skates like size 13, if your radius is too short you'll be tetering around and lack balance.  A one-size, fits all  9' radius just doesn't work the same on the 13 different size runners that are on skates. We offer virtually every radius in one foot increments from 6' and up. We also offer many different combination radius for the advanced skater. Because combo radius take more time and labor, they cost a little more but they are worth every penny! (Visit our Combination Radius Info Page)