Jake Brunott's been keeping skates sharp in Thornhill for three decades.
THORNHILL, Ontario - Although lots of people strive to stay sharp, Jake Brunott has made a career out of it.
For over 30 years, the Thornhill native has been sharpening skates full-time, first in his father's basement shop and since 2004, in his own store, Jake's Figure Skate Sharpening.
And after three decades in the skate sharpening business, Brunott has amassed himself quite a following. Enter through the door of his small store, tucked away off Langstaff Road, just beneath Highway 407, and you'll immediately notice a wall of pictures with a veritable who’s who of the figure-skating world.
“Katarina Witt, Toller Cranston, Kurt Browning and Shae-Lynn Bourne are just a few,” says Brunott, a tall man with an obvious enthusiasm for the sport he services.
More recently, he’s added 2010 Olympic gold medalist, Kim Yu Na to the list, as she’s been training in Toronto for the last few years.
“A big part of this is trust: They trust me. When they come here they know I’m sharpening the skates because I don’t have anyone else working here. So they get consistency,” Brunott says.
While on their last tour of the U.S., British ice dancers Torvill and Dean sent him their skates via Fed-Ex, he recalls.
If his customers appreciate his consistency, they owe a debt to his attentiveness. Far from a one-size-fits-all approach — he says automatic skate sharpening machines are about as good as sticking your head in a hair cut machine — Brunott tries to anticipate how each customer will adjust to the sharpening.
“If you have a dull skate and then you get a really, really sharp skate, it can be a hindrance, so I try and take that edge off a little bit,” he says. “That’s where the skill comes in — to have a feel for that: how sharp are these blades and how sharp should I make them? I want them to be comfortable within 10, 15 minutes to a half an hour. It shouldn’t take you more than half an hour to get used to a figure skate sharpening.”
Ice time and coaching time are expensive and shouldn’t be wasted finding your feet, Brunott says.
Long-time customer Lynne Pulenzas puts her trust in Brunott.
“He does a very good sharpening, very precise,” says Pulenzas, the mother of three competitive skaters. “My daughters wouldn’t skate with anyone else sharpening their skates.”
Her daughters are very particular and like precise sharpening before they skate, she says. The family visits Brunott for sharpening at least every two weeks. “It’s always nice to have a visit and catch up with Jake and know how he’s doing,” Pulenzas says. “We have a lot of trust in Jake.”
It’s surprising that a man who spends so much time worrying about the skating experiences of others didn’t take up the sport himself until he was 25.
“My father was a professional figure skater in Europe and South America, but for some reason he didn’t get me into it when I was young,” says Brunott. “When I was 25, I realized I was going to be in this business for a long time and I thought, ‘Ya know what? I should know more about what’s going on with the blades when they skate on them.”
Since then, Brunott typically hits the ice three to four times a week, often as a volunteer coach at the Thornhill Figure Skating Club. He also rides his bike to and from work every day. “I lead a very active lifestyle. There’s no better way to start and end your day than on a bike,” he says.
The same active philosophy applies to the store. When Brunott is less busy in the quieter season (May to August), he maintains the machines and comes up with ways to improve the business. He’s working on a database to keep track of a skate’s sharpening history throughout its lifetime.
However, enough of his time is occupied with figure skates that he doesn’t need to try too hard to fill it. In fact, Brunott only sharpens figure skates, citing the unique challenges of the figure skate as his passion.
It’s perhaps that particular niche that makes the whole job worthwhile for Brunott. He says that what the hot stove is to hockey, his store is to figure skating—a place for those who love the sport to congregate and discuss it.
“The biggest thing is the rapport I build with my clients, the social aspect, actually. It’s wonderful. Sometimes I’ll have a four or five people in there and everyone’s chatting,” he says. “It’s my passion.”
