Cleaning Hockey Equipment – A Challenging Task.

If you’ve played hockey for any reasonable length of time, you will no doubt be familiar with the ‘unique’ fragrance produced by well used hockey equipment. A quick wiff of a skate, glove, or heaven forbid a shinpad, can often be enough turn the stomach of even the most grizzled veteran.

And while most players and parents  make an effort to wash the equipment that can be washed in a regular washing machine, it still leaves a lot to be desired. The odor causing bacteria that resides in equipment that can’t be traditionally washed such as gloves, skates and elbow pads not only stinks, but can be dangerous.  In fact Joe Thornton and other NHL players have missed several games due to an elbow infection caused by bacteria from equipment. Some, including, Thornton have even required surgery for Staph infections.

Often we don’t think of the health consequences of having such bacteria lingering in our equipment, but are mostly concerned about the smell. The truth is that the bacteria are the cause of both the stench and the health concerns, so we we must get rid of the bacteria to solve both problems.

Over the past few years, I am sure you have noticed machines popping up at local rinks and pro-shops that promise to get the odor out of your equipment in just a few minutes.  Several of these machines use Ozone technology which kills the bacteria and helps to eliminate the odor. Ozone is powerful and effective, used in water treatment for years, and is proven to eliminate 97-99% of bacteria living on your equipment.

Which Equipment Sanitizing Machine To Use?

A good start when looking for a product to use is always is to find out what the professionals are using. In this case, 27 of 30 NHL teams use an equipment cleaning machine from Sani Sport.

When such an overwhelming majority of professional teams use the same technology, it says a lot about the effectiveness and quality of the product.  With that in mind, calls were made to local shops looking for a store that used Sani Sport. Finding none in Regina,  a quick search of the Sani Sport website revealed that the local Canadian Football League team uses the Sani Sport machine.

With training camp just completed and the regular season about to get underway, it was surprising to be able to get in touch with Roughriders Equipment Manager, Gordon Gilroy. Although Gilroy couldn’t arrange time to allow a test of the machine, he did offer some strong words of praise for Sani Sport.

In addition to routinely sanitizing the Roughriders football gear, Gilroy also mentioned that he used the machine during the World Junior Hockey Championship that was hosted in Regina this past winter.

Joking about how bad hockey equipment smells, Gilroy stated “I did hockey equipment in there during the World Juniors and it was unbelievable… even the gloves that went in there came out smelling just like new, it’s crazy.”

Final Thoughts On Cleaning Hockey Gear

Ultimately, it is important to get your hockey equipment sanitized at least a couple of times per season to avoid the health risks of infection. In addition, it will likely gain some brownie points with other members of your household by keeping the hockey smell out of the house.

*Tip – Use Febreze Antimicrobial (not regular Febreze) on your equipment following each use. This will help to keep the odor and bacteria in check between trips to the Sani-sport machine.

Have you used an equipment sanitization machine? What was your experience?