I Tested Polyglide’s Synthetic Ice

And here's the honest truth about synthetic ice from an uber hockey Dad's perspective. I took Polyglide Synthetic Ice for a test after seeing it on Shark Tank.

The Reality of Year-Round Hockey

Youth hockey has changed. It is no longer a seasonal sport. To be a top athlete today, you have to work year-round.

My son plays competitive hockey. He loves the game. But taking the summer off just isn't an option if you want to stay sharp. The kids who skate in July dominate the ice in September. It is that simple.

Getting summer ice time is brutal. It costs a fortune. Private ice time easily runs hundreds of dollars an hour. Rinks are far away. The schedule usually involves waking up at 5:00 AM on a Tuesday just to get an hour of stick time. I grew tired of the driving. I grew tired of the early mornings. I needed a better way for him to practice at home.

Sometimes you just are busy. I just have work or meetings that I can't reschedule.

I looked into synthetic ice. I was highly skeptical. I heard the horror stories. People said it ruins skate blades. People said it feels like skating through wet cement. Sometimes, sports training tools are just gimmicks.

But doing hockey drills in sneakers only goes so far. The mechanics of shooting and stickhandling change completely when you add two inches of height and a thin steel blade under your feet. Your center of gravity shifts. He needed to practice on skates.

So I bought a PolyGlide Synthtic Ice Home Kit.

I will admit that it was more of a “hopeful” purchase than one with full confidence – but I thought, he, if this really does allow for more training time, maybe it's worth the investment.

Was it? Keep reading to find out what I love and what I don't love about Polyglide Ice.

I want to break down exactly what this synthetic ice stuff is. I will explain how it works, what it costs, and the reality of installing it in your house.

Discovering PolyGlide on Shark Tank

I first heard about PolyGlide from an old episode of Shark Tank. It aired on September 20, 2016. Season 8, Episode 11.

The Polyglide founder, Jim Loughran, pitched his synthetic ice panels to the Sharks. He actually brought youth hockey players into the tank to skate on the plastic surface. It grabbed their attention immediately.

But here's the thing…

Jim didn't get a deal. The Sharks attacked the price. They thought he lacked energy. They thought the product was too expensive for the average consumer. But Jim knew his product. He retained 100% of his company.

Sometimes investors miss the mark. They do not understand the sheer amount of money hockey parents spend on ice time, travel, and gear. A few thousand dollars for a permanent home training rink is a bargain if it actually works.

And I was seeing a trend of more parents spending money on extra hockey camps, extra ice time, and even expensive “training” programs.

So. I decided to try it.

The Options and The Cost of Synthetic Ice

PolyGlide offers a few different setups. You have to understand what you are buying before you pull out your credit card. There are two main categories.

1. Polyglide Starter Home Kits

These are lightweight, portable tiles. They use a solid-core construction. You can buy a starter pack for around $290. They are smaller. They are easier to move around. If you just want a small shooting pad in the basement, this works.

And for that purpose, it may make sense.

2. Polyglide Pro-Glide Panels

This is the heavy-duty stuff. This is what you saw on Shark Tank. These panels are infused with a self-lubricating polymer. You do not need to spray them with a glide enhancer. They are thicker. They range from 1/4-inch to 3/4-inch thick. They come with a 5 to 15-year guarantee depending on the thickness you buy.

We bought the Polyglide Synthetic Ice Pro-Glide panels.

If you buy cheap, non-infused high-density polyethylene, you will regret it. Non-infused plastic is sticky. You have to constantly spray it with liquid lubricants to make it slick. It attracts dirt. It becomes a messy trap for dust and garage debris.

Infused panels cost more up front. Pay the extra money. It saves you hours of cleaning.

(Hey, nobody with teenage boys want to spend more time cleaning, Am I right?

Synthetic Ice Space Requirements

You do need the right kind of space.

You cannot just throw these panels on the grass in your backyard. You need a hard, flat subfloor. Concrete works. Plywood works. A flat basement floor is ideal.

We decided to use the garage.

How much space do you actually need? A 10×10 foot area is the absolute minimum IMO if you want to take actual strides. Anything smaller is just a shooting pad. You can stand still and shoot, but you cannot skate. We cleared out a 10×20 foot section of our two-car garage.

This meant moving a lot of junk. Old paint cans. Broken lawnmowers. You need a completely clean slate. Sweep the floor. Vacuum the dust. If there is a small rock under the plastic panel, it will warp the surface. You will feel that bump every time you skate over it.

Kinda a pain, but you have to do it right.

The Installation Process

Installing the rink is surprisingly easy. You do not need a contractor. You do not need special tools. Two people can build a massive rink in an hour.

The panels use a dovetail edge. They look like giant, heavy puzzle pieces.

Here is how you put them together:

• Lay the panels flat on the subfloor.
• Locate the arrowhead-shaped corners. Ensure every arrow points in the exact same direction.
• Line up the dovetail joints.
• Hit the seams with a heavy rubber mallet. Do not use a metal hammer. You will damage the plastic. Use a wooden block to distribute the force if needed.
• Start at the center tab on the long side of the panel. Work your way out.
• Pretty soon you'll have the Polyglide synthetic home kit all laid out. And you get this amazing feeling of expectation and accomplishment. It's like you're just about to turn a corner or you made a new discovery.

The Polyglide seams lock tightly. Once they are pounded flat, the surface is remarkably smooth. You run your foot over the seam and barely feel a bump.

Can synthetic ice be removed in the winter?

Yes. This was a massive selling point for me.

I live in an area that gets real winters. When December hits, I want to park my car inside the garage. I do not want to scrape snow off my windshield every morning in the freezing cold.

PolyGlide is entirely portable. When the snow falls, we take the rink apart. You just pop the panels loose, stack them against the garage wall, and park the car. It takes twenty minutes to disassemble. When spring arrives, we sweep the floor and build the rink again.

You get your garage back when you most need it.

The First Skate: The 15% Rule

I remember the day we finished the installation. My son laced up his skates. He stepped onto the white plastic.

He pushed off. He immediately stumbled.

He looked at me and said, “My skates feel heavy.”

This is the reality of synthetic ice. It is not real ice. Anyone who tells you it feels exactly like a frozen pond is lying to you. Real ice melts under the pressure of a steel blade. That thin microscopic layer of water provides the glide.

Plastic does not melt. You are dragging steel across polymer.

There is roughly 10% to 15% more friction on PolyGlide than on natural ice. You feel it immediately. You have to push harder. You cannot just coast. If you stop moving your legs, you stop sliding.

This is actually good practice. It builds the legs.

I was worried he would hate it. I was worried I just wasted a lot of money.

But then I watched him adapt. He started digging in deeper. He bent his knees more. He engaged his core. The extra friction forces you to use proper form. If your mechanics are sloppy, the plastic punishes you.

Think of a baseball player swinging a heavy bat in the on-deck circle. That is what synthetic ice does for hockey players. It adds resistance. Boom – extra bonus, hehe!

After thirty minutes of skating drills, he was sweating profusely. It is a grueling workout. When he finally went back to a real refrigerated rink a week later, he flew. He looked like he had rockets on his skates. The lack of friction on real ice made him feel incredibly light. The resistance training worked.

Edges and Mechanics

We bought this to work on his edge control.

Hockey is entirely dependent on your inside and outside edges. You have to be able to hold an outside edge through a tight turn. You have to be able to cross over cleanly without washing out.

The PolyGlide surface holds an edge surprisingly well. The plastic allows the steel to bite. He can do forward crossovers. He can do tight turns around traffic cones.

You can even do a hockey stop. But it feels entirely different.

On real ice, you shave the top layer of ice as you slide sideways. On plastic, the bite is aggressive. You have to commit to the stop completely. You need fearlessness to attempt a hard stop on synthetic ice. If you hesitate, your blade catches and you go flying over your ankles. (Yes, it happened a few times.)

Puck Handling and Balls

Skating is only half the battle. We bought this so he could handle the puck.

Shooting off a stationary plastic pad is fine. But games are not played standing still. You have to be able to catch a pass on the backhand while crossing over. You have to be able to pull the puck through your skates while moving at top speed.

This is where PolyGlide truly excels. The puck glides beautifully.

Real ice gets snowy. It gets chopped up in the third period. The puck bounces. PolyGlide stays perfectly flat. The puck slides flat and true. He can practice toe drags and saucer passes with a regulation black rubber puck.

(You won't lose as many pucks, but I ended up buying some nice new pucks so there would to be any friction or dented pucks. (Way better price than Canadian Tire, BTW.)

But we do not just use pucks.

We still use golf balls. We still use tennis balls. Hand-eye coordination is OP in hockey. Always has been – always will be. Pucks sit flat on the surface. Balls bounce. They roll unpredictably.

I stand off the plastic and bounce tennis balls at his skates. He has to kick the ball up to his stick blade without looking down. We use golf balls for rapid-fire stickhandling drills. A golf ball moves much faster than a heavy rubber puck. It forces his hands to speed up.

Doing these ball drills while balanced on a 1/8-inch steel blade translates directly to the game. You cannot replicate that balance wearing sneakers in the driveway.

The Wear and Tear on Synthetic Ice

You have to understand the maintenance involved.

First, your skate blades will take a beating. The polymer surface generates heat. The friction dulls the steel edge rapidly. I was not expecting this, actually, but it makes sense.

On real ice, my son can go five or six practices before needing a sharpening. On PolyGlide, the edges feel dull after two heavy sessions.

This means you either need to buy a home skate sharpener (which is not so hard as you may think), or you will be making frequent trips to the pro shop. It was an extra expense, but it saved me driving to the rink twice a week just to get his skates ground.

Second, the plastic creates shavings. As the sharp steel cuts into the polymer, it carves out microscopic white flakes. After a week of heavy use, the garage floor looks like it is covered in a light dusting of snow.

You do have to clean it.

If you let the shavings build up, the glide gets worse. Dirt sticks to the shavings. We keep a dedicated shop vac next to the rink. It's noisy, but it works. I make him vacuum the ice after every session. Sometimes we mop it with hot water and a pH-neutral soap. Keep the surface clean, and it performs perfectly.

Who Is This For?

PolyGlide is an incredible tool. But it is not for everybody. It's bulky, expensive, and requires space and a little maintenance. You need to know if you fit the demographic before buying it.

It even works for figure skaters.

Who Polyglide Synthetic Ice is For

• Dedicated players. If your kid actually wants to get better, they will use it. It takes discipline to skate in a hot garage in July.
• Parents with space. You need a flat, hard, cleanable surface.
• Figure skaters. Figure skaters love this stuff. They can practice spins and jumps in the basement. They build muscle memory quickly.
• People willing to maintain gear. You have to sharpen skates. You have to vacuum the plastic. If you are lazy, this will become a dusty floor mat.

Who Polyglide Synthtic Ice is NOT for:

• Goalies. I cannot stress this enough. Goalies rely on lateral slides. They push off their edges to slide across the crease on their pads. Goalie pads stick to synthetic ice. You cannot perform a proper butterfly slide. The pads grip the plastic and stop you dead. It ruins the mechanics of playing in the net.
• Casual skaters. If you just want to casually glide around holding hands with a cup of hot cocoa, do not buy this. The extra friction makes it too much work for casual enjoyment. Go to a public skate instead.
• People expecting real ice. Set your expectations. It is roughly 85% the feel of real ice. That missing 15% matters. Accept it as a training tool, not a perfect replica.

Real Reviews from Real Customers

I am not the only person who feels this way. When you look at the reviews for PolyGlide, you see the exact same themes repeated by other hockey parents.

Danielle, who bought Polyglide synthtic ice, left a review saying, “This rink is perfect for off season training… Our son loves it and uses it daily. Huge hit when friends come over!!! Easy to set up and has multi purposes for dry land and ice time!!!! Worth every penny!”

Kevin, another guy I researched before buying, talked about building out his basement. “We have been steadily growing our rink in the basement. Now up to 20 by 8. My 4 year old son learned to go from walking on the ice at 2 to flying around now at 4. My daughter son and I love inventing drills to challenge each other.”

Another customer, Steven, claims the company's support is good. I have not had any issues personally: “Excellent customer service also. I had a question about the tiles and someone who could help me answered the phone and took care of it promptly and professionally.”

People on Reddit are blunt. In the hockey player subreddits, players constantly debate synthetic ice versus rollerblades. Some argue that inline skates are cheaper. But the consensus remains clear. If you want to practice real edge work and actual ice stickhandling, synthetic ice is the closest you can get at home. Inline skates do not have edges. You cannot practice an actual hockey stop on wheels. You cannot practice an outside edge turn on wheels.

The reviews confirm what I experienced. You buy it for the reps. You buy it for the muscle memory. And the extra push you need to put into your pushes (which really shows when your kid hits the regular ice.!)

Getting the Reps

Hockey, like most high-level sports, is a game of repetition.

You do not become a great shooter by taking ten shots a week at team practice. You become a great shooter by firing five hundred pucks a day in your garage.

Adding skates to that equation changes everything. My son takes those five hundred shots while balancing on his edges. He shifts his weight exactly the way he would in a game.

We built drills around the friction. I set up cones. He has to do tight turns around the cones. The plastic forces him to dig his outside edge into the material. If he cheats, he washes out and falls. The PolyGlide keeps him honest.

It is tough. He complains about the extra effort. He sweats through his shirts. But the results show up on the ice.

When tryouts roll around, you can spot the kids who took the summer off. They look rusty. They look heavy. They stumble on their crossovers.

My son steps onto the ice and flies. The heavy training pays off.

If you are serious about hockey, and really getting better in the off-season (which I think is mandatory now) Check out Polyglide. I really think it has been so much better that I was expecting in many ways.

Check out the panels we bought on Polyglide.

It takes effort. It takes money. But the extra ice time matters. The ability to work on real hockey mechanics in the middle of summer makes a difference. We put in the work. He reaps the rewards on the ice.

Anyhow, if you have used Polyglide, I'd love you to lend your thoughts to the discussion. Drop a coment either for or against.