Sidney Broadbent

Sidney was born an uncle in Maidenhead, England to an older father with 7 sons and a mother  with 5 children. This extended family lived in a home with no electricity, no telephone and no  refrigerator. Nor was there a car—that could explain his love of roller skating which eventually  led to his expertise in ice skating. He remembered coal being delivered in a horse-drawn cart,  which heated the stove to provide warmth, hot water for his weekly bath and hot embers for  toasting bread. The milk man would deliver fresh milk that he would ladle into a jar for the  family, his mother scooping the thick cream for her morning tea. At the age of 13, he was gifted  a hand saw for his birthday, at 14, his first lathe. Being very mechanically minded and needing  to help earn wages for the family, he went to work at a machine shop, while also going to  technical school at night. At this young age, he was also awarded a scholarship to attend art  school, and was very proud when his drawing was selected to be exhibited in the school. At  the age of 26, he passed the exams of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and became a  professional engineer.  

During World War II he worked on aircraft and radar, designing the rearview mirror for the  Spitfire aircraft. He joined the Home Guard in England and was responsible for extinguishing  incendiary bombs and was a dispatch rider for air raid alert duty. 

In the early 1950’s Sid left England for Canada, arriving in Montreal then moving to Toronto  where he worked on the Avro Arrow until the Canadian government canceled the project and  fired all 14,000 employees in a day. Ice skating became his passion with his newfound free  time, and he met his future wife, Barbara on a blind date. At this time in 1958 the opportunity  to purchase a plot of land on the Severn River in Muskoka became available, and he jumped  on it sight unseen. He put his energy and last funds into building a cottage with no road and no  electricity to aid his efforts. It became his favorite place on earth, and he spent many summers  there with his family.  

Sid and Barbara were married and moved to Columbus, Ohio where their daughter, Gail was  born in 1960. He worked for North American Aviation until their move to California for a few  years, and on to Colorado in 1969, where he was hired as an aerospace engineer for Martin  Marietta, working on projects such as the Viking Lander and solar arrays for Saudi Arabia.  Retiring early from Martin Marietta after 13 years, he began to develop his own small business  which expanded on his interest in ice skating, combining his mechanical expertise, skating  experience and artistry to design the most elegant, sophisticated ice skate sharpener on the  market which he called the Incredible Edger. The business, Iceskate Conditioning Equipment  has sold over 2000 machines worldwide, from South Africa to Iceland, affording him the  opportunity to travel and visit customers. Many Olympic skaters have had their skates  sharpened on his machines. In 1987 he was awarded a grant from the US Olympic Committee  which funded his Skateology lab in the now defunct Alpine Ice Arena measuring co-efficients of  friction for skate blades and luge runners on ice. And in 2011 he received the Frank J. Zamboni  award from the Ice Skating Institute for “outstanding and innovative contributions to the ice  skating industry”.  

Sidney is survived by his daughter Gail Firmin (William) and his two grandchildren, Michael Firmin and Rachel F. Scott. His wife Barbara predeceased him by 10 years. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to one of his favorite charities: World Wildlife Fund or The Nature  Conservancy.

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