No Skates Today

Alas, my trip to Phoenix today was a bust. I got up to Polar Ice in Chandler about 2:45 and checked the place out -- it's very nice. Two rinks, like Gateway here in Tucson, but the layout is much spiffier. You can see the rinks from the lobby area through glass so it's very inviting and open.

Unfortunately when I went in the pro shop, they didn't have any adult male skates in my size. After some calling to their store in Peoria (which is a long way from Chandler, I wouldn't have had time to go there, really), the Peoria store had some of the "Glacier" model. They showed me a pair of these and... I was not impressed. They were inexpensive ($80) but they had plastic or rubber soles, and they seemed pretty soft. I didn't think I would get enough ankle support in these things and I didn't like the soles, they seemed cheap to me. The bottom line was I decided I was better off going ahead and getting my feet measured at Gateway in Tucson and ordering a good pair in. I'll do that tomorrow if possible.

In retrospect I really should have called ahead and asked, that was pretty dumb of me. I've not quite gotten it through my thick skull that there seem to be almost no adult male figure skaters, and that I'm going to have to deal with that a lot. Something to remember.