The Broken Blade at my Rink

Below I'm showing the effect of a broken blade. Johnathon Hunt in the 1999 South Atlantic Regionals, had a blade break in a triple Lutz.

 He was in good position during the jump, too bad.

And he cleaned up the parts and screws on the ice.

That's a gentleman.

Now at my rink last week a male skater had a blade break, not in quite the same way.

He had Pattern 99, because he's a big guy, and much like Santa Claus, he needed that fist sized toepick that a Pattern 99 gives.

He's walking to the ice, and he hears a click-click with every right foot step.

He ignores it.

He gets on the ice to take a lesson.

He's not jumping, so the lesson goes okay.

He gets off the ice and takes off his boots.

The right blade had a crack straight across the front footplate, so everytime he took a step, it made a click-click.

Red line indicates failure

He skates in 11 1/2 blades (which is rare in any blade, but it seems ALL the male skaters I know, skate in an 11 1/2 blade).

So, he starts a search for a new pair of Pattern 99 blades in 11 1/2" . He finds ONE PAIR, in the UK that will take over a month to get.

Then the skater contacts his coach, who contacts her skate tech, that has a lot of male customers, including several Olympians.  The tech has a pair of Jackson's Ultima Apex in 11 1/2" on the shelf and they're equivalent to the Pattern 99. The tech gets the word the skater will take them. They're mailed out two days later.

Let's face it. In figure skating, who you know counts, even when you're a hobbyist  or recreational skater.

(Oh, and why did the Pattern 99 break? There's a suspicion that it was a manufacturing fault, as skates normally rust out at the stanchions (as in the video above))