When purchasing skates, it’s a good idea to also get a skate sharpening. This allows you to use your skates immediately without issues. There are both profile and hollow sharpenings.

A radius/profile sharpening means that the blade is not completely flat but has a curved shape. This ensures you get equal contact with the ice whether you are standing upright or leaning forward or backward. The radius is measured in meters or feet, and the value indicates the size of the curve, i.e., the radius of a circle.

For beginners, it’s good to have a lot of ice contact for increased stability. The best profiles for beginners are 17 ft and 19 ft. As you become more experienced, you can choose a profile with less ice contact, which offers faster acceleration and better mobility. Profiles between 10 ft and 15 ft are ideal in this case.

The next step is to try combination profiles, where different radii are used on different parts of the blade to combine the best of several worlds.

The most popular combination profiles are Zuperior and Quad. Zuperior is great for wingers and defensive defensemen, as it offers high speed forward and good balance for winning battles. Quad is suitable for centers and offensive defensemen, as it provides excellent mobility and quick turns at high speeds. Another popular profile is Ellipse, which is a dynamic profile that uses a single oval shape instead of a circle or multiple circles.