Thin Blades

Underneath each sledge (used to play sledge hockey) there is either one blade or two. Your seat is mounted directly above the blades so the closer together they are the less stable the sledge is. When you are first starting out you begin with two blades set wide apart. As your balance and skills improve you progress to having the two blades closer together. Eventually you may even switch to having a single blade, but not until you are quite advanced.

Being new to the sport, I've been using a sledge with two blades set wide apart. If I was to estimate, I'd say there is about 4inches/10cm between them. That is, I'd been using this sledge up until this weekend. Our team for the game last week was actually a combination of two teams/levels from the same sledge hockey program. We practice on different days, at different arenas and my sledge was accidentally brought back to the wrong arena following the game. Thankfully the rest of my equipment, padding, helmet, etc. made it back to the right place. This meant I would have to choose a different sledge for practice though.

We have a couple extra sledges but not many small ones. Finding a sledge that's the right size/fit for you means looking at the size of the seat (bucket) and the length of the sledge (most are adjustable but only to a certain extent). Lastly, I was also looking at the blades. The problem was there wasn't a sledge with a small seat, that was adjustable to the right length and had wide set blades. There were a couple that had the right blades and would have been the right length but the seat was too large. I would end up sliding around in it and it'd be difficult to maneuver. The smallest seat on the extra sledges, which was still a little bigger than I'd like, would work but it's blades were much closer together (thin blades). They were only about 2inches/5cm apart.

I decided to give thin blades a try with the full expectation of tipping over way more often than usual. It requires a lot more work from your core to stay balanced on thin blades compared to wider set ones. For this reason, in that moment I was very thankful I had opted to skip the abs section of my usual work out at physio on Friday. I had done so with hockey in mind.

I did surprisingly well on the more advanced sledge. Not even just well considering I've only been doing this for 6 weeks, well for any player transitioning to thin blades. I did tip over more easily and frequently than usual but not as much as we'd expected I would. My coach even said he thought my turns and stops were much better in this sledge. He was definitely right. They seemed to come a little easier for me with the thin blades. I think being of such a slender build and lightweight, the narrower base made it easier for me to get up onto one edge/blade in my turns. While getting off the ice, the woman who is basically our team manager also said I had done a really good job on the thin blades. She even jokingly said I was not allowed to go back to using my other sledge. Although initially said as a joke, we both agreed that I will likely stick with the thin blades. I did well on them and am eager to develop my skills in the sport.