Boot Technology

[Spider68]

Just picked up new hockey skates for my son (Bauer SFX 20's, thank-you!).

I'm somewhat amused and perplexed that ice hockey skate manufacturers have made such strides and improvements in hockey skates, while most of today's figure skates are basically unchanged from Sonja Henie's days.

My son's hockey skates are extremely light, water resistant, heat formed to fit the foot and offer support and protection.

I would think that there has to be "rocket science" technology that could incorporate all the mechanical factors needed for jumping, utilize the new materials and composites, etc. and come up with a lighter, better figure skate.

Of course, maybe we are dealing with "tradition".

Meanwhile, I continue to look and marvel at the design features that have been built into the hockey skate.

[chattykathy]

Every year for 8 years,when having my daughters feet drawn by an upright pencil, I have wondered the same thing!

I wish I could come up with the technology, then I could afford my daughters skates!

[vesperholly]

If you look at boots in "Sonja Henie's day", they were extremely thin around the ankles, and went halfway up the shin. Today's boots are much shorter and thicker, which gives more support.

It always amuses me when people claim boot technology hasn't changed. I think there are new things that come along all the time. Heat-moldable boots are becoming common. Manufacturers are playing with different materials for the soles to make them lighter. Blades have become refined and strong. New details are being introduced pretty consistently, like notches in the ankles, hooks on the tongues and flexible spots over the pinkie toes. Elvis Stojko wore/wears Graf's made out of synthetic materials (the ones that were black/red/yellow).

By the way, the basic construct of shoes haven't changed much since the days of Roman sandals. Is that a bad thing? Change is not necessarily improvement.

:)

Jocelyn

[dooobedooo]

Figure skaters may be interested in the new boots from Edea, an Italian manufacturer, which use a lot of new technology and are quite cheap. Men's boots have a charcoal pearlised finish and women's have a creamy pearlised finish. 'Fraid I don't know anybody personally who has tried these out yet, but they certainly look good!
Link is at: http://www.edeaskates.com/home.asp

Does anybody reading this have any experience or reports on these boots?

[roogu]

I wouldn't say the structure of the boot hasn't changed ...... but the number of changes haven't been as much as say hockey skates. I firmly believe that it's been that way because in hockey skates, it's easier to experiment because when it comes right down to it, hockey skates rarely leave the ice. Figure skaters jump several feet in the air and require some serious sturdiness for hold up your foot so it doesn't break from impact. There's simply virtually zero tolerance for figure skate manufacturers to play around.

But it has come a long way ...... we've gone from regular leather to triple and even quadruple reinforcements ... to heat moldable boots and even Kevlar (a major material used in hockey skates) being used in figure skates.