I had it this week when I turned a pair of skates in for consignment. Because of an injury, they were used just two times. The were sharpened by the skate shop itself when I bought them. The woman starts to give me the song and dance about bad sharpening, and asks who did the sharpening. I say "you did". Then I get told that I should have brought them back right away for a resharpen. I don't really know if anything was wrong with the sharpening, and I didn't care all that much but I was horribly offended how I was spoken to. I really felt that this was their usual tactic to lower the trade in prices. I took the skates back home with me. I had to take them out of the sale clerk's hands, I guess no one had walked out on her before.

So I've actually decided not to go to that skate shop anymore, even though I've got some trade in value left to cash in. I'll just keep them in my basement or make flower pots out of them When we buy new skates we are going back to where we used to live to buy them there. I just can't take the harrangue about how I am stupid and don't know anything about skates. I've only spent thousands of dollars on skates.

Even when we go for sharpening, the sharpener asks who did them before, like we've been unfaithful to him. We're looking around for a new figure skate sharpener too. On the other hand, I've never been asked anything about hockey skate sharpening from the hockey store and there's six pairs of hockey skates in this house that get sharpened practically every second week by arena_guy.

would you consider donating them? I'm trying to put together a collection of skates I can loan to my "brand new skater" students who don't have their own yet, so they can understand why they need good equipment. I'll pay for the shipping.

I'm in Canada so I'm not sure about shipping. That's an idea though, if you don't mind me stealing it. These are boys skates and I'm going to ask the local male coach if he wants them for potential boy skaters. I know that when my oldest started, we put him in white skates, he got over it eventually. I'd be happy if they helped another boy skater get started, they're few and far between.

Yup, that's one of my main motivations. I coach ice dance and am trying to figure out ways to get boys interested. Please keep me in mind of your coach doesn't want them.

I once bought new skates and considered using my old blades on old skates for coaching. The lady took one look at the blades and said, Man these are badly sharpened...hardly any rocker left...and on and on. Finally she asked me where/who had done that to a nice pair of blades...I had to say "You did!". She had no clue what to say after that. Needless to say I never go there for sharpening. I sometimes buy a dress there but rarely.

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Montreal, QC, Canada

Yow. This is why I sharpen my blades myself, with a hand-held sharpener. I just don't trust anyone else. I'm bright....I can certainly learn to sharpen my own skates--especially if the people who are supposed to know how to do it, can do such a bang-up job screwing them up!

You can hope that your reply put her in her place...but she'll probably go on screwing up other blades and blaming it on the owner.

When my skaters were younger, we did skate trade in's, and the shop owner wouldn't take them back in for trade unless they were sharpened through her shop. If you mentioned that you had them done anywhere else, even by Elvis Stojko's personal skate sharpener, that voided your trade in allowance. The hassle got to be too much as there were questions at every trade in. We stopped buying there because one time we needed a certain boot model as recommended by the coach and went to Toronto for them and paid them in full. We broke the trade in cycle. The kids were past that quick grow stage and were at the point where they were breaking down the boots so the trade in wouldn't be much.

I then discovered that if we weren't tied to one shop for trade ins, that we could actually shop around and found better selections and service. For sharpening, the coach takes all the skates and deals with that. I think that any sharpener could take a pair of skates and find something wrong with them, not seriously, but enough to show off their "superior" knowledge to someone else.

ITA !!!

Every sharpener has a different idea of priorities, and even the very best disagree on such supposed fundamentals as the correct radius of hollow for a blade.

And I once went to a well-meaning and careful mid-level sharpener who spent a full half hour evening up my blade edges, took off loads of metal, and managed to completely destroy the rocker in the process. Guess one thing all the best sharpeners do have in common, is that they take off as little metal as possible.

I have one person who sharpens my skates. He is an hour and half away so I frequently have to FedEx my skates to him. I live in constant fear of him switching careers or something. I once allowed a coach at my home rink (who sharpens all the figure skaters blades) sharpen mine. When I took them back to my original guy I got the "who did these?" question. But to his credit he showed me what was wrong and then fixed it. I told him I was unfaithful and ashamed. He laughed. Never, never trust your blades to just anyone.

We live about 400 miles from a real sharperner, the people here just do hockey skates.Some people fed ex them, we are going there next month and will do it then.