why your edges matter
Your blades affect how you stop, turn, and feel on the ice. Consistent sharpening helps you trust your edges every time you skate.
Bite and glide
Bite
A sharper, deeper hollow gives you more grip in turns, stops, and quick changes of direction. That extra bite can help you feel more connected to the ice. Too much bite, though, can make your stride feel heavy and increase drag.
glide
A wider, shallower hollow helps your skates move more freely across the ice. That means better efficiency, smoother stride mechanics, and less fatigue over time. The right setup balances enough bite for control with enough glide for speed and comfort.
finding the right hollow
The hollow is a personal preference. Many factors influence what hollow will feel right for you – your blade profile, your size, your weight, and your playing style. Some skaters prefer more grip for turns and stops; others prefer an easier glide. If your skates feel too “grabby” or like they slide too much, tell us. We can help you choose a hollow and keep it consistent.
the feeling of sharpness
The feeling of sharpness in your steel is largely determined by how deep the Radius of Hollow is. A smaller ROH creates a deeper groove and more bite, while a wider hollow allows more glide.
match your body and style
Heavier players may benefit from a shallower ROH for added speed and glide, while lighter players often need a smaller ROH for extra grip. Too deep a hollow can create unnecessary fatigue.
more bite, less fatigue
With Elite’s automated sharpening system, many players find they do not need as deep a cut to feel sharp. A wider ROH can deliver strong bite, more glide and less fatigue.
why consistency matters
When a sharpening feels different each time, a skater may need time to adjust. Keeping the same hollow and a consistent finish helps their blades feel familiar from one skate to the next.
Where to start
If you already like how your skates feel, tell us your current hollow and we can keep it consistent. If you want more grip in turns and stops, or your blades feel too grabby, tell us that too. We can help you choose a starting point and adjust it based on how it feels on the ice.
the elite advantage
Elite’s patented sharpening technology focuses on three details that affect how consistently a blade is sharpened: the hollow, the height of the two edges, and the blade’s profile.
Those familiar sparks flying off your blade when you have them sharpened with a manual machine are pieces of the soft, resin-stone grinding wheel breaking up and burning as it comes into contact with the steel blade. That means that with each sharpening pass, the wheel is actually disintegrating. When the wheel degrades, it changes your hollow. You lose consistency, precision, and performance.
a consistent hollow
The ES-4 uses durable, diamond-coated steel wheels designed to maintain their shape. The wheels are machined to aeronautic standards to create the most precise radius hollows and they maintain their shape perfectly for the life of the wheel. The diamond coating provides superior durability and cutting power. That helps produce the same radius of hollow from one sharpening to the next, so your preferred level of bite stays familiar.
perfectly centered edges
A self-centering clamp positions the blade over the sharpening wheel. This helps create symmetrical edges, giving the skater a balanced feel on the ice.
With manual sharpening systems, the centering of the blade over the wheel is done by eye. The problem is, if the operator is off by even a few thousandths of an inch, your edges won’t be even and that will affect how you feel on the ice.
your blade profile
ELITE’s revolutionary sharpener uses high-tech industrial controllers and precision digital drives to automatically control the speed and pressure of the sharpening. The ELITE sharpener protects the profile of the blade with exact precision. Every time. That means we preserve the performance characteristics of your blades in way which is impossible to achieve with any other sharpening system. This kind of microscopic precision cannot be achieved by anything but a sophisticated computer. All other sharpeners in use today cannot avoid distorting the profile and integrity of the blade.
Having consistent blades you can trust means you need to remove exactly the same amount of steel along the entire skating surface of the blade when sharpening, or your blade shape will be distorted, and you will compromise your performance. Even a change of few 1/1000ths of an inch makes a huge difference on the ice.
trusted at the highest levels of hockey
Elite sharpening systems are used by the NHL, PWHL and Division I hockey teams. The Edge Club brings Elite ES-4 sharpening to local players and families.
how the edge club helps
We record your preferred hollow and sharpen your blades with the Elite E-S4, so you can request the same setup each time. With a membership, regular sharpening becomes part of your routine instead of another errand.