Gear Care

Taking care of your pads, gear, and skates will help keep them in great shape as long as your player can wear them (which can also help with re-sale!).

After every practice and game, leave all of the pads, gloves, and helmet out to dry. Jerseys and socks should be washed to prevent odor and bacteria, and staining from sweat. You can put every piece of equipment in the wash except for your skates and helmet.

The pads can be sprayed with odor disinfectant (like OdoBan of CaptOdor) to help combat odor and bacteria growth or put on a gear drying rack. Remove your child's gear from the bag after skating and use 1-2 sprays on each piece of gear. Make sure to spray inside gloves and skates and on the interior of shin guards and shoulder pads. Then, simply let the gear air-dry. This will help to neutralize, destroy, and deodorize any odors so they are ready for their next skate.

While it is always recommended that players take the gear out of their bag after a skating session to let it air dry, a gear drying rack gives them a place to put it while it dries. Rather than taking up a lot of space with gear all over the place, drying racks keep gear organized in a small area. They are lightweight, portable, compact, and take under 30 seconds to set up!

Dry Your Blades

Always dry off the blades of the hockey skates with a dry cloth before putting skate guards on to transport in your hockey bag to prevent them from rusting.

At home, remove the skate guards, and store skates upside down (blade up) in a dry, cool place (in the summer, do not store them in the basement to prevent the humidity from causing them to rust).

Sharpening the Skates

Skates need to be sharpened regularly. The first time should be as soon as you buy them - new or used. If the blade of the skate starts to get uneven, has picked up dings or dents get them re-sharpened.

The edges should be even and without divots or gouges as you gently rub a finger across the edges. There should be a little bit of drag against your finger. Once that feeling is gone, the skates need another sharpening. One sign of a lost edge is that the player is slipping and falling on turns or when trying to push off.

Blades will also dull more quickly if they are not kept covered by skate guards off the ice. If the blades rust, they will also lose their edge, so keep a small towel in the hockey bag to wipe the blades off after all skating.

Usually, skates need to be sharpened between every six and eight hours of skating. Skates dull faster on outdoor ice.