Players warm to idea of using heated skate blades

More than 30 NHL players have volunteered to be guinea pigs for the latest innovation in hockey equipment — gear that requires batteries.

For now, the league is limiting the use of the Thermablade, a heated blade that reduces friction while skating, to 10 players in practice. But the NHL's senior manager of hockey operations, Kris King, says if all goes well, the blades could be found on NHL players' soles "sooner rather than later."

"We want to make sure it's strong enough," King said. "Since there's a battery floating around inside, we want to make sure everything is going to stay in one piece on a 100 mph slap shot."

Source: USA Today, 10/19/07

Canada-based Therma Blade Inc. is developing a list of players, with the approval of the NHL and NHL Players Association, who will get a crack at testing its new product. The NHL will then query those players to evaluate how the Thermablade performed before the blade wins approval.

"It's really no different than any other equipment company looking to get a product approved," King said.

Much has changed since King retired from the NHL six seasons ago. The use of expensive one-piece composite sticks has become commonplace among skaters. All 30 teams are sporting new, form-fitting Reebok jerseys, meant to decrease drag and water absorption, this season.

"The Thermablade is just another idea NHL players may be interested in," King said.

Like the other innovations, King says there probably will be a trickle-down effect if many of the NHL's top players adopt the blade.

Therma Blade, which counts Wayne Gretzky among its 150 investors, will begin marketing the blade to the public by December for $399.99, a $300 premium over most replacement blades currently available. It can be attached to the boot of many existing skates, which already can cost several hundred dollars.

"We're not trying to cripple the parents who have a 4-year-old playing hockey," said Sam McCoubrey, Therma Blade's vice president of sales and marketing. "We aren't forcing parents to buy it because it's only available in adult sizes. But we spent $300,000 on market research and found there is a significant market for this.

"I think there's going to be interest from the most competitive players to old-timers wishing they were a little bit faster."

For Phoenix Coyotes equipment manager Stan Wilson, the use of the Thermablade won't change his job much.

"We're changing blades on a pretty regular basis anyway," he said. "It's just one more thing that we are going to have to do. We'll just have to get used to the whole battery changing thing."