Whee!

I Sno-Sealed my boots last night. Today I had the afternoon off, so I took my skates in and got the blades their initial sharpening. The guy at the pro shop said I should come in in another week and a half or so and he'll drill out holes for the remaining screws for the blades -- I need to skate in them as-is for a while to get them settled.

After all that I went and got my admission for the public session around 3:15 and went and put my skates on. As I'd read, I didn't lace them all the way to the top. The ice was pretty crowded (lots of kids) and the ice was really, really beat-up; the worst I've ever seen. Going out with the new skates was definitely an adventure -- they felt very different and I'd never skated with blades with a sharp edge. It took some getting used to. The toepick is a little large than on the rentals I'd had and it did get me a couple of times, I fell once and almost fell a second time. All in all it went very well though -- I stopped frequently to rest and relace my skates.

Around 4:30 or so there was a Z-break. While I was waiting I put my guards on and walked next door to check out rink 2, which is used for a freestyle session at that time. It was really nice over there. There were 2 or 3 skaters working with their coaches. It was colder over there and much quieter. Maybe someday I'll be over there.

After the Z-break there was just 10 or 15 minutes left in the public session... but it was heaven! Fresh ice, and most of the people left at the break so it was down to 8 or 10 people. It was wonderful! I could really feel the edges on my skates. I had tried to do some snowplow stops before but I couldn't quite, but with the fresh ice it was fine. I did about 36 forward swizzles in a row before I got tired of counting and stopped. I also started working on a backward swizzle, and I briefly managed to do two in a row. My left foot toepick seems to be crunching the ice though so I suspect I'm doing it wrong.

My new skates look and feel beauuuuutiful! They make me very happy. I'm really jazzed about it and looking forward to my next skate on Monday.