Services: Skate Sharpening, Heat Moulding and Equipment Sizing
Behind the counter of every hockey shop are three services that matter more than the gear on the wall: sharpening, baking and sizing. This page explains each one, and records how the old SC Sports offered them.
Skate sharpening
Sharpening grinds a hollow into the bottom of the blade, leaving two edges that grip the ice. The depth of that hollow, called the radius of hollow, decides how much bite and glide the skate has: a deeper hollow grips harder, a shallower one glides further.
SC Sports charged $6 a pair in 2016 and $7 from 2017, with a prepaid card for ten sharpenings at a discount. Cards did not expire, and the first sharpening was included on every pair of skates the shop sold.
Read the guide: Skate Sharpening: Hollow, Timing and Telling When It's Time
Heat moulding
Most hockey-level skates can be heated in a skate oven so the boot shapes itself to the player's foot. Heat moulding cuts the break-in time of a new skate; it does not make a skate of the wrong size fit.
At SC Sports, heat moulding was offered on any hockey-level skate the shop sold. The process took fifteen minutes or more, depending on the level of the skate.
Read the guide: Heat Moulding Skates: What Baking Does and What It Can't
Equipment sizing
Sizing is the part of buying gear that makes it protective. Every piece of hockey equipment has a correct position on the body, and most injuries from equipment happen when a pad is too big and slides out of place.
The shop's staff were trained to size players for hockey, baseball, lacrosse and soccer, and kept up with gear from CCM, Bauer, Warrior, Vaughn, Elite, Rawlings, DeMarini, Louisville and Wilson. The stores also carried York Fitness weights for home gyms.