Alright, so I wanted to share something I’ve been messing around with lately. Been calling it my ‘mass edge hockey’ project. It sounds fancy, maybe, but it really just started ’cause I felt kinda… stuck. You know? Like my gear wasn’t quite working with me on the ice.
I wasn’t looking for miracles, just wanted to see if I could tweak things myself. Get a bit more jump, maybe feel the ice better. The whole ‘mass edge’ thing popped into my head – basically, messing with the weight distribution, the ‘mass’, and the skate ‘edges’. Seemed simple enough to try.
Starting with the Weight
First up was the mass part. Skates felt like the obvious place. I dug around the garage, found some small, flat fishing weights. Don’t laugh. I cleaned ’em up and started experimenting. Taped a couple low on the outside of the skate holder. Went for a skate. Felt… weird. Like my feet wanted to flop outwards.
So, I tried different spots. Inside the holder, near the heel, near the toes. Used good strong tape, obviously. Had a few failures:
- Weight falling off mid-stride (yeah, that was embarrassing).
- Making the skate feel way too heavy overall.
- Not really noticing any difference at all sometimes.
Then I moved to my stick. Added some tape weight to the butt end. Felt okay, maybe a bit more leverage on shots? Then tried a tiny bit near the blade hosel. That felt awful, like swinging a hammer. Scrapped that pretty quick. It was a lot of just trying stuff, skating, feeling it out, and changing it again.
Focusing on the Edge
While messing with weights, I got thinking about the blades. The ‘edge’ part. I usually just get a standard sharpen, you know, whatever the shop does. But I started wondering. What if I tried something different? Read a bit online, nothing too technical, just guys talking about different hollows.
Asked the guy at the shop for a flatter hollow next time. Felt faster, definitely. Glided better. But turns? Felt kinda slippery, less bite. Okay, noted. Next time, went back towards a deeper hollow, but not quite as deep as before. Trying to find that sweet spot. It’s crazy how a tiny change feels so different under your feet. Honestly, just paying attention to the edge, how it felt cutting, stopping, gliding – that alone was useful.
Putting It Together (Sort Of)
So, after a bunch of sessions, stripping tape, adding tape, getting different sharpens, where am I at? Well, I took most of the weight off the skates. Turns out, lighter felt better for me overall. Less is more, sometimes. But I did keep a little bit of weight, taped right inside the heel of the holder. Seems to ground me a bit without feeling sluggish.
On the stick, I stuck with a slightly heavier butt end. Just feels better balanced for my hands. And the edges? I found a hollow that’s not super deep, not super flat. Gives me decent glide but still enough bite to feel confident. It’s not perfect, probably never will be.
It’s been a process. Lots of trial and error. Some days I felt like I made things worse. But it forced me to really feel my equipment, you know? Understand how tiny changes impact movement on the ice. It wasn’t about finding some secret cheat code, more about connecting better with the gear. Still tweaking, probably always will be. That’s the fun part, I guess.
