Analysis of Hockey Skate Blade Holders: An Investigation into Broken Skates by Reverse Engineering

Abstract

Ice hockey is a fast-passed, highly physical game. With that speed and physicality comes specialized equipment for the players. Occasionally, that equipment breaks. Blade holders are the part of the hockey skate that forms the connection between the boot of the skate and the steel blade. During my time working at a hockey specialized sporting goods store, I noticed a pattern of broken blade holders. The objective of this thesis is to reverse engineer two blade holders that are on the market today and to quantify their resistance to breaking in relation to one another. With this information I will present a feasible redesign of a blade holder that performs better under circumstances realized throughout a hockey game. The reverse engineering process included 3D scanning two blade holders then converting them into a form that could be manipulated and analyzed in a CAD Simulation format. My new design takes into account downfalls realized of the current blade holder and attempts to alleviate the issue of broken holders. In the end, the objectives of comparing current blade holders responses to impact, and creating a new blade holder that performs better under the same circumstances were achieved.