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Where I'm playing at now, the benches are almost below the ice, so you have to do a bit of a hop to get over the boards. And I'm tallish at 6'2" so for others it is tough to get over. Same with the showers, random ones working or if they do work might have some "warm" water. Plus how nasty the floors are. I don't understand how mismanaged most rinks are.
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Oct 12, 2025 09:13
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The Predators are taking over the management of the city parks-run rink in town, which is definitely in rough shape but I’m sure they’re just going to slap on a few coats of paint and raise our league fees by 50%
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Oct 12, 2025 16:52
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Thufir posted:The Predators are taking over the management of the city parks-run rink in town, which is definitely in rough shape but I’m sure they’re just going to slap on a few coats of paint and raise our league fees by 50% Is that the Centennial Sportsplex or is there another one? We took the kids to a tournament in Nashville in April and the rink locations there are really mostly terrible for a place that's had an NHL team for over 30 years. That one was pretty decent, but I imagine it's because the Predators have their practice facility there.
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Oct 12, 2025 17:24
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Yeah Centennial. IMO the ice and stuff is fine, the main problem with that rink is that on one sheet some of the locker rooms are incredibly, unexplainably small, and the locker room bathroom/shower situation is pretty gross. Edit: Until ten years ago or so, Nashville only had Centennial and a crummy privately-owned rink (which has since closed). Since then the preds have partnered with local governments for three new rinks but the locations are quite suburban. Thufir fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Oct 12, 2025 |
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Oct 12, 2025 17:43
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Yeah, we had 2 games in Nolensville in that converted indoor soccer building and it was so small, and they were at least an hour late all day because no one showed up to open the building. I don’t doubt the locker rooms being bad, but I don’t know that I’d expect them to do much about it. The Kraken complex here is just as poorly designed as a hockey facility and while they’re required to build 2 more, the second one is 2 years behind and they haven’t broke ground. The third one doesn’t even have a location scouted.
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Oct 12, 2025 23:12
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Jhet posted:Yeah, we had 2 games in Nolensville in that converted indoor soccer building and it was so small, and they were at least an hour late all day because no one showed up to open the building. I don’t doubt the locker rooms being bad, but I don’t know that I’d expect them to do much about it. Isnt the second one in Redmond or Kirkland or somewhere on the east side IIRC. It's a shame because the city of Seattle needs more ice. There's already ice in almost every suburb outside the city in every direction. There was zero ice in Seattle until the kraken arrived.
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Oct 12, 2025 23:32
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Verman posted:Isnt the second one in Redmond or Kirkland or somewhere on the east side IIRC. It's a shame because the city of Seattle needs more ice. There's already ice in almost every suburb outside the city in every direction. There was zero ice in Seattle until the kraken arrived. Kirkland has tentatively approved it. It's south of Kingsgate, at one of the nightmare exists off 405. So it'll be great for no one to go to ever unless you live already in Kirkland. The third one is supposed to be on the south end somewhere in Renton or something, but we'll see when that happens in 10 years. Kent Valley is going to finally put in a second sheet before the Kraken get anymore done at this rate. Supposedly that is actually happening, but details are sparse.
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Oct 12, 2025 23:34
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Jhet posted:Yeah, we had 2 games in Nolensville in that converted indoor soccer building and it was so small, and they were at least an hour late all day because no one showed up to open the building. Oh yeah I’ve only skated at that one once because it’s so far away and it was like January and they didn’t have heat in the locker rooms.
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Oct 13, 2025 01:16
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Why does finding a place that sharpens skates consistently well such a hard thing? Feels like most of the shops you need to know who there is trustworthy and who you just go nope and turn around when you see them behind the bench. I don't need them razor sharp, but having to point out every little ding or risk them not cleaning them up enough is a giant pain. Doing QC on a basic task at a pro shop to make sure they actually got the whole steel and didn't leave dead spots is real annoying.
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Oct 13, 2025 16:42
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Because all those places are staffed by poorly paid teenagers that don't give a poo poo and the turnover rate means no one sticks around long enough to learn to care. Usually if you can get in when the owner is working the store you can get a decent cut.
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Oct 13, 2025 16:49
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It's the middle-aged guys I need to look out for, the kids all do a fantastic job. This is all at a local family pro-shop, not a big store or chain. I should probably just feel less bad about asking them to clean up spots they missed before I leave instead of not taking a good look until I'm home.
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Oct 13, 2025 16:59
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It's why all the Pure Hockey stores are replacing their sharpening services with the automatic machines. Sharpening is a skill, not a particularly difficult one, but one that takes a small amount of patience and attention to detail. We won for the first time this season 4-3 with the new team and higher division last night, and I had 2g1a and was on the ice for all 4 goals. We finally controlled the puck in the o-zone for large portions of the game. Can't believe the other line didn't score, they were peppering in shots. I managed a ton of chances too including a tip that just caught the goalie on the shoulder. It's amazing what happens when you remember to just keep your feet moving and finding space. I was able to actually anticipate where the puck was going to be because of I wasn't starting from standing. It feels really good to have a team that's been great in the locker room, and is playing together on the ice too.
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Oct 13, 2025 17:14
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Gunzo's is a local Chicago chain and they've always done a fantastic job sharpening for me. If you buy your skates there, you get $2 off every sharpening for the life of the skates and free punches too! There was ONE guy at Play-It-Again Sports who knew how to sharpen skates properly, but he left and so did pretty much all the people I know who used to get their skates sharpened by him.
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Oct 13, 2025 17:33
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Jhet posted:It's why all the Pure Hockey stores are replacing their sharpening services with the automatic machines. Sharpening is a skill, not a particularly difficult one, but one that takes a small amount of patience and attention to detail. A local rink went that route and they managed to gently caress that up, the results they get from a sparx machine is notoriously bad. Turns out they can't automatically maintain themselves.
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Oct 13, 2025 17:46
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Not even sure where I'd go these days if I wanted my skates sharpened by something other than a machine. Sharks Ice switched to them years ago. There used to be a hockey shop across the street that did it the old-fashioned way, but they shut down a few years back. Pretty sure the local Pure Hockey uses a machine, too.
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Oct 13, 2025 17:56
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xzzy posted:A local rink went that route and they managed to gently caress that up, the results they get from a sparx machine is notoriously bad. Turns out they can't automatically maintain themselves. Accurate. The Bauer machines can do profiles if you buy the guides and eventually probably a subscription service. I bought a Wissota when our local shop imploded with an owner that’s self destructive and am really happy with it. Some learning curves, but it works great now that I’ve figured a lot of it out.
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Oct 13, 2025 18:24
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Luckily the best sharpener at the rink, who is also a figure skater, bought a sharpener for her house after she quit working at the rink, so I Venmo her $10 every month or so for flawless sharpens. Also, I’m starting to feel like I’m being targeted. 4 games played and 0G/0A on the stats page because they keep giving my points to other guys. I might need to change numbers, there’s too many people with 2s on the team - 2, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29.
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Oct 13, 2025 20:30
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I always try to give my assists to our goalie. Some refs don't question it and will blindly give their number to the scorekeeper, but others figure it out and just laugh at me. One season years ago, we got our goalie to like 20-some points in a 22-game season. He was in the top third of scorers in the league with all assists. Henrik Zetterberg fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 13, 2025 |
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Oct 13, 2025 20:51
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Habibi posted:Not even sure where I'd go these days if I wanted my skates sharpened by something other than a machine. Sharks Ice switched to them years ago. There used to be a hockey shop across the street that did it the old-fashioned way, but they shut down a few years back. Pretty sure the local Pure Hockey uses a machine, too. Sharks Ice got a fancy new skate sharpening machine... after I went "if you can't beat em join em" and bought a Sparx. I don't love it. At the time I felt like I align mine better than they did and it's cheaper per use with no waiting. Oh well.
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Oct 13, 2025 23:32
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I love my Sparx.
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Oct 13, 2025 23:37
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It's... fine. It's not as good as someone who knows what they're doing.
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Oct 13, 2025 23:40
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I liked the machine they had in Renton for a bit before the pro shop shake up. It wasn't perfect but it was consistently good and did profiling as well.
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Oct 14, 2025 00:04
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Kevlar v2.0 posted:Gunzo's is a local Chicago chain and they've always done a fantastic job sharpening for me. If you buy your skates there, you get $2 off every sharpening for the life of the skates and free punches too! God I miss gunzos. Such a great hockey shop. They always knew what they were doing with my skates. In Seattle, Lynnwood play it again had a few people who knew what they were doing and a few who didn't. Then there was hockey wolf. They did a great job until they closed down. A few of the employees started their own business and they operate out of OVA. breakaway hockey. You can now drop your skates or steel off after hours in a drop box and they'll sharpen it for you. I had a complex situation and CJ was a wizard. I had two sets of steel that were different heights, but I liked the profile on the taller steel. I wanted them the same. Easy to do if the profile i like was on the shorter steel, just cut them down until they match. I laid them on top of one another and using a digital caliper, traced the profile into my shorter steel. He shrugged and said he would do what he could. They were perfect. The only difference I can tell is that the one set is taller. But they feel the same otherwise. He didn't even charge me for the profile, just a sharpening because he said I did all the work, he just cross cut them and sharpened. Verman fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Oct 14, 2025 |
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Oct 14, 2025 07:53
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I was getting my skates sharpened every 3-4 weeks until I realized I was relying on sharp edges to get good bite and it was making me bad about keeping heel pressure to dig in my edges. Skated the last three months without a sharpen and got a lot better at getting good dig on dull edges by driving my heels in and keeping my ankle stiffer with my knee forward. Skated last night on a fresh sharpen as I had some skate-skate contact over the weekend that road to a big ding and drat freshly sharp skates feel nice on good ice, grip for days and excellent glide. I also started skipping the second to top eyelet and it's a nice mix of improved forward flex while still having enough side to side support. I still struggle with ankle control in some situations so I don't really like fully skipping the top eyelet, but this feels nice. I'm traveling for work for the next month and it's going to be my longest break from the ice since I started, not looking forward to it. Hoping to use the time off to do more strength training and try to keep the cardio up via intervals of some sort? Really don't want to come back feeling out of shape if I can help it.
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Oct 14, 2025 15:38
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Chemmy posted:It's... fine. It's not as good as someone who knows what they're doing. Yeah this. With my garage out of power for 6mo I’ve had to get them sharpened this way a few times. It’s fine.
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Oct 14, 2025 16:00
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I was the only coach available for the mites over the weekend. I think I skated more than in a game. There is one little boy who is 5ish who is pretty good. Will be interesting to see how he improves.
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Oct 14, 2025 21:33
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Welp, got my first penalty of the season (15 games in) and it was a big one. Kicked off the ice and a game suspension. The league has been getting way more chippy as we get closer into the finals, and the last two teams we played especially have been dirty. Last week, I got tripped from behind and fell hard on my side, bruising my ribs pretty bad, so I was coming into the game already on edge. Game last night started out rough, and one dude who's a notorious hot head and dirty player clipped me as we were skating past each other behind the play. That put me on edge, and then in the 2nd period her straight up checks me from behind and I go sprawling and lost it. He's a lovely skater and her went down too, and so I reached over and shoved my glove in his face and started shouting lots of pleasantries at him. We both get up, still shouting (refs get in between us at this stage) and other dude drops gloves wanting to look tough now that the refs were already there. We both got kicked off, and I was told we're both getting a game. Probably deserve it all things considered as retaliation is always gonna get hit hard, but what's nice is my team (and some of my friends on the other team) have told me that the other dude had it coming, so at least there's that.
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Oct 15, 2025 08:38
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Verman posted:It's bizarre to spend this much money on a hockey facility only to miss some pretty basic things. The rink I skate at has 2 rinks. One is normal NHL size and the other is slightly smaller. It has normal zones inside the blue lines but the neutral zone is hilariously short. Anyway, the big rink had been under construction since the spring. Completely ripped up, new floor, new pipes, new boards, glass, benches, absolutely everything brand new. This rink has had tons of problems over the last 3 or so years so they ripped everything out to go brand new and "do it right". Well, we notice the zamboni was making like kind of weird, off set laps around the ice and we asked the guy who runs the league and basically there is a soft spot at center ice that if the full weight of the zambo hits it, like the tires roll over it, it will sink and or crack. They apparently used piping that was not rated for glycol and it is loving everything up. What I don't know if it was incompetence or material shortage issues so they just did whatever they could to get a frozen sheet in time for high school/college seasons to start.
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Oct 22, 2025 20:02
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bigbillystyle posted:I know this is from a little while ago but I just had some experience with the rink I skate at and spending poo poo tons of money but doing it wrong last night. oof that sucks. Where is this? My guess is they probably used a general contractor who may have not been super experienced in making a refrigerated ice sheet and all the poo poo that is required for it to work properly. Maybe they subcontracted the wrong people to lay the pipe, they ordered the wrong kind of pipe, or didn't fill/compact it with the proper amount of sand beneath the concrete. That sucks because a lot of rinks can't really afford to invest in a huge project like that and lose out on that revenue for very long. Projects like that are weeks if not months, and thats just to get back up and running to normal, its not like suddenly you're going to make more money after its fixed, but then to have to do it twice? That could put a lot of places out of business unless they take legal action against the company responsible for the install. Yeah I'll complain about showers and locker rooms all day but at least the ice is always good.
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Oct 22, 2025 20:39
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Verman posted:That sucks because a lot of rinks can't really afford to invest in a huge project like that and lose out on that revenue for very long. Projects like that are weeks if not months, and thats just to get back up and running to normal, its not like suddenly you're going to make more money after its fixed, but then to have to do it twice? That could put a lot of places out of business unless they take legal action against the company responsible for the install. LIC did this a couple years ago now and it's paying off in the winters. It took all summer to fix it though, and it's still not perfect. It's drat cold in there these days, and the ice is a whole lot better than a few years ago*. Now the only good locker room in there is the old guys' room and it is phenomenal. They've got a big TV in there, leave all their gear, it's awesome. The ice is a lot harder, and if they can get the zam door figured out and stop leaving crap in that corner it'll be a decent sheet of ice for 8 months of the year. *Except in the summer because they don't have enough insulation still.
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Oct 23, 2025 03:31
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We had a game tonight with my second team, against a team I know a few of the players. The last game we played them we were really short, maybe 7 players. They beat us pretty bad. Tonight we had 13. I was playing defense instead of my usual center which was fine because I just played last night and I was pretty dead. This game started very quickly. We jumped out to a lead immediately with goals from our usual suspects, but then they got a greasy goal back. It was 2-1. I go on for my second shift and we get into the zone. I'm in the middle of the offensive blue line and my d partner gets the puck near the boards and feeds me a pass. As he passed it I debated, "catch and shoot or one time?" I decided to one time it. I watch it go straight towards the goalies chest and hear a deep thump. I assume it's buried in his chest but then I see it was behind him. I felt bad, I think they were put in the wrong division this season. We won 12-1. I had a goal and at least three assists. We let up and passed a lot, but even our lovely shots from outside would find a way in. I'm not sure if it was their normal goalie or what but it's been a long time since we've had a game like that. We've been on the other side of it plenty of times but it's not even fun after a certain point. Thankfully everybody stayed pretty cool about it and nobody got chippy.
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Oct 28, 2025 09:21
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Verman posted:oof that sucks. Where is this? My guess is they probably used a general contractor who may have not been super experienced in making a refrigerated ice sheet and all the poo poo that is required for it to work properly. Maybe they subcontracted the wrong people to lay the pipe, they ordered the wrong kind of pipe, or didn't fill/compact it with the proper amount of sand beneath the concrete. It's in Bridgewater MA. I'm not sure who they got to do it, but I do know at one point this spring when the rink was down to just dirt some contractors got their van stuck in the dirt for like 3hrs. They were digging and trying to pull it out with another van and tore all kinds of stuff up. It's almost impossible that it was stuck there for that long. That was very early on in the process so there weren't like any pipes down or anything yet.
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Nov 2, 2025 16:11
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Out in Winthrop this weekend and we had the early game. Ice was pristine and it was a cherry 40 degrees. Sure hope it’s not raining for our next one. Outdoor hockey is just so much fun.
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Nov 7, 2025 17:21
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Jhet posted:Out in Winthrop this weekend and we had the early game. Ice was pristine and it was a cherry 40 degrees. Sure hope it’s not raining for our next one. One of my buddies is out there this weekend. It's always a gamble in November because of the rain but at least you get to drive highway 20 instead of the long way around, and it won't be -20°F.
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Nov 7, 2025 20:09
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I wish there was outdoor stuff near me. We got lucky last year with the ponds freezing. My daughter still talks about it. It's also been interesting coaching the mites. At times I wish I was as tall as they were less of a distance to fall.
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Nov 7, 2025 20:22
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Verman posted:One of my buddies is out there this weekend. It's always a gamble in November because of the rain but at least you get to drive highway 20 instead of the long way around, and it won't be -20°F. We did go Hwy 20, it started snowing about halfway through the pass, but it was just gorgeous on the way over. The weather was saying rain today until last night and it should be 30-40 degrees with just some clouds all weekend. It’s been really nice and the ice will hold up well. Town is super quiet right now, everyone is taking a break before snow season starts.
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Nov 8, 2025 00:07
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