: 1140122314

Over the years, Donald Klingbeil has seen hundreds of young boys and girls climb into the ink-covered fitting chair at Klingbeil Shoe Labs. Each time, without fail, he watches the little ice skaters in training pull out a pen and sign their autograph to the wooden chair in hopes of sealing their Olympic dreams, like medal winning figure skaters before them have done.

Klingbeil Shoe Labs, a family owned business that started in 1949 customizing orthopedic shoes, has become not only a staple in it’s neighborhood of Jamaica, but in the ice skating world as well.

“My father started making orthopedic shoes over 50 years ago and one day a person asked him if he could make them a pair of ice skating boots,” said Klingbeil, who is now the company’s vice president.

Klingbeil’s father, Bill, hand crafted the first set of boots nearly three decades ago and as soon as word of the customized skate boots spread the orders started rolling in. The next thing the family knew, customers like 1976 Olympic Gold Medalist Dorothy Hamill, 1984 Olympian Elaine Zayak and 2002 Gold Medalist Sarah Hughes, were sitting in the wooden chair getting fitted for customized skate boots.

Lately the Klingbeils have been working with their champion customer, Great Neck’s 16-year-old Emily Hughes – Sarah’s younger sister.

“She was just here on Monday getting in a last minute tune up before she sets off to Torino, oh and she dropped off this picture that was taken during nationals,” Klingbeil said, pointing to a signed photograph of Hughes with the message, “Don, I blame everything on the boots. Emily.”
“She’s a real jokester, I’ll tell ya,” he laughed.

Over the past 10 years the Klingbeil family has watched the Hughes family skate towards greatness, sizing Sarah, Emily and their younger sister, Taylor, from their elementary school days to even a few months ago.

“They are one of the nicest down-to-earth families I know,” Klingbeil said. “And Emily, every time she stops by she is just like her sister Sarah, with a wide smile. All you can do is really wish the best for them.”

While the Klingbeils want nothing more but to see Hughes bring home the gold medal from Torino, Italy, he said that it is going to be hard for him to watch her perform on television.

“I don’t know what it is, but I have a hard time watching those girls compete. Maybe it’s a phobia, I’m not sure, but it’s something,” Klingbeil said. “I did watch Emily skate at Nationals and I have to admit I kept thinking about the skates.”

It is the meticulous process that each handmade skate boot goes through that makes the boots stand out and the Hughes opt for Klingbeil’s brand after all.

The two week process starts with a tracing of the skater’s foot on a piece of paper and then a 90-year-old machine is switched on to carve the tracing out of a solid piece of maple wood. Layers of leather are then cut out by hand and fitted around the wood to construct the boot, Klingbeil said. After the heels are nailed on and the entire boot is trimmed, sanded and buffed the final touch is added, the skater’s name. The boot then either gets sent out to have a blade attached or they do it themselves there.

“The process might sound like a lot, but there are no other skate boots like these out there,” Klingbeil said of the $545 pair of skates. “Seriously, not one boot that we make is like the next one in the line.”

Then again, every figure skater that wears the Klingbeil brand is not like the next.