Hi, I’m Rich Andrews — also known as Rich@TheRink when I have my skate-maintenance hat on.
I have been involved in ice skating since around 1991. I started as many skaters do: learning, taking lessons and spending time at the rink. Before long, simply skating was not enough. I wanted to understand more about how rinks operated, how equipment worked and what helped skaters perform comfortably and confidently.
I later worked as casual staff at Riverside Ice and Leisure in Chelmsford, helping with skate hire, ice stewarding and a range of rink-maintenance activities.
A serious accident on the ice then brought both my skating and my rink work to an abrupt end. The effects of that injury still affect me today, and for a long time it seemed that skating might no longer be part of my life.
Years later, after physiotherapy helped me regain some mobility, the opening of Cambridge Ice Arena gave me the opportunity to return to the ice. As my love of skating came back, so did my interest in the science and engineering behind it. With a Master’s degree in Engineering, I suppose that part was inevitable.
I went on to work casually at Cambridge Ice Arena, initially providing general ice assistance and later cutting the ice, sharpening skates and coaching ice hockey through the GLL Learn to Play programme. I subsequently moved into team coaching as well.
Through this work, I saw how difficult it could be for skaters to find knowledgeable, specialist help. Many had to travel long distances for fitting, maintenance or technical advice, while some commonly available services relied on automated or consumer-grade equipment that could produce inconsistent results.
That experience led me to create TheRink: a way to use practical experience, technical knowledge and an engineering mindset to help skaters understand their equipment, solve problems and stay on the ice.
Rich@TheRink began through my work at Cambridge Ice Arena, particularly skate sharpening.
The aim was simple: to support skaters across different ice-skating disciplines through careful workmanship, honest advice and a deeper understanding of skating equipment.
What started with public skate sharpening and a small number of additional services developed into a specialist skate-maintenance and problem-solving service.
Today, my focus is on the areas where experience and attention to detail matter most: sharpening, skate maintenance and repairs, fit issues, foot pain, blade alignment and practical equipment guidance.
I do not believe skaters should be pushed towards unnecessary purchases or made to feel that they need to understand every technical detail themselves. My role is to listen, investigate the problem and provide clear, realistic advice.
Whether you are new to skating, returning after time away, progressing in your discipline or struggling with equipment that simply does not feel right, TheRink is here to help you find a practical way forward.
It quickly became obvious that just performing maintenance and helping people choose skates was not going to be sufficient to achieve my goals of promotion of ice skating, so the business has gradually grown into effectively three different businesses, all centred around "TheRink"
Rich@TheRink is my maintenance and retail business. I am the face of getting into and improving at ice skating (whether that's figure skating or ice hockey). I've helped well in excess of 1,500 individual people over a two year timespan, and continue to have new customers weekly. On the fitting side, as a Member of the Society of Shoe Fitters (MSSF), it's not just about knowing the boots; it's about applying wider footwear-fitting knowledge alongside skate-specific experience, blade alignment, boot modification and on-ice feedback to help skaters choose and adapt skates more carefully.
But to make it even easier for people to get on and enjoy the ice, I have built a free set of tools under TheRink Skater Portal (or Skaters@TheRink, if you will). You can register with just a Google account or mobile phone and make use of these tools, today, for free.
And to support both of these, TheRink Labs (originally called the Skate Engineering Lab). Using my background in engineering I've set up a collaboration site that investigates key areas of interest, all with the aims of improving ice skate equipment manufacture, ice skate mechanics, comfort and safety, and skate technician tooling to take some of the guesswork out of sharpening.
The results speak for themselves. Less profile drift; improved hollow quality and more accurate work. Customers of Rich@TheRink benefit from this today and my hope is skaters will benefit whoever their preferred skate technician is.