I wouldn’t wash the gear if it was going to be well below freezing for a stretch. I would lay it out on the deck or hang it on the clothesline for a full day. The freezing temps will kill a lot of the bacteria and refresh the gear. I mean, if you had several days in between games, I suppose you could hang it in the laundry room, but I would want to have set up a good fan and possibly a portable heater going to get it good and dry. I personally would just go for airing it out outside and wait for a mild spell before actually washing it.

Yay! I’m glad you found this post, Lorrin! And yes, being a goalie mom can definitely be stressful at times! I’m much more relaxed watching my younger son’s games. Haha!

Yep. I’ve been washing my boys’ equipment for years!

have all sorts of athletic gear made with synthetic fabric that retain smells even after washing. I also have my running shoes, cycling helmets, and a wetsuit that have similar issues. I use a BlueWave cleaner which works really fast (One Cycle is 5 minutes) and with very little set up. Just put the items in, and the odor and funk is destroyed. Problem solved. Loving my BlueWave.

Hydroxyl is the term used for an oxygen-hydrogen (-OH) side group on another chemical. Peroxide is O2 with a single bond found either as a radical (no other atoms attached) or between other side chains (e.g. H2O2). Peroxide is the chemical moiety found in cleaners like Oxy-clean. Ozone is O3 and is generally not found in household products as it is highly unstable and takes a large amount of energy to produce (http://www.mikeblaber.org/oldwine/chm1045/notes/Bonding/Resonan/Bond07.htm).

Try Odor-Aid disinfectant. The clerk at Play-it-again Sports treats used equipment with it and it works well for gloves and skates.

Not that many.

Ozone will destroy rubber.

My older son is a goalie, Mary, but I won’t wash his blocker or trapper. I’m afraid I might wreck them.

Good to know about The Rocket, Frank. Thanks! As for the “hockey-mom” thing, I guess it’s because this is my personal blog, and I simply write from my “mom” point of view. If I were a “branded business” or a corporation, my posts would be written from a more professional, politically correct stand-point. I’m not. As I said, I’m just a mom sharing her ideas on the web. Being offended by something you read is a personal choice. I’m sorry you chose to feel offended and excluded by my post.

That is just brilliant! Truly!

If the one piece will fit into the drum of your machine, yes, that’s how I wash my son’s.

And to clarify further, if you’re upset by my suggesting that only husbands play hockey (and not wives), that is not true. I just assume that if the wife plays hockey, she likely doesn’t find the odour offensive (see my comment about hockey players having a fondness to the smell of their gear). No need to take anything personally or to start a gender debate where one doesn’t exist. 🙂

I’m not sure why you’ve interpreted my article as being targeted to male hockey players, Caroline. The hockey players that I make reference to are “kids”, and I’ve suggested that “hockey moms” (of either gender of course), may find the article helpful. I suppose if you want to fairly critique the article, I should’ve said “hockey mom or dad”, but quite honestly, when I’m writing from a mom’s point of view, I just write from my heart, and don’t have time for all the political correctness.

Christine,

Provided there is no heat in the application then all the manufacturers would support it. As soon as heat is used, even though it may not be visible, it can breach the integrity of the compression foams and pvc in the gear. If it is cycle air, like if you put something on tumble dry in your dryer, then it will work. I know the Rocket System out of Montreal caused some gear to melt, deform and even in on instance catch fire.

So as long as you are cognizant, then yes, by keeping the feeding ground for microbes at bay you eliminate one of the two elements needed for them to grow. Moist area is one of them and of course the sweat is what the microbes eat. Eliminate one, as you are suggesting, then you have started to quell the growth no question.

Ken

Check out the. EquipmentRanger.com
A forced air sports drying and organization system. If you can get the gear dry quickly the mold griejbg becomes less of an issue!! Developed for our goalie son! Helps cut down on The stink!!

The HappyHooligans is a great read as often as I am notified of new blogs and updates on this one in particular being close to what we went through.

Yes, the bag is the petri dish that houses all the 13 primary contaminates found.

Keep up the chatter about hygiene in hockey folks, it will save lives in the long run truly!

Thanks for popping in again, Ken. Love all your insight and advice. Great point about the hockey bag. I never even think to wash ours. Pretty scary to think of the infections that can be caused by moldy gear! Yikes!

Hi Faye,

First, get a phosphate free surfactant and use that in conjunction with an antiseptic such as Dettol (by one cap per load only or per mixing cup of soap and mix thoroughly). That is important to maintain all the clarino materials’ integrity found all throughout goalie gear (and player gear too).

Start with stuffing newspapers into the blocker and catcher and skates. This is going to start to wick the moisture that is in there with the microbes onto the carbon of the ink and will assist you in cleaning it all up! Remove all the pads you can out of all the gear and mark it’s location if you need to or photograph it so you can remember how in the world it all came out!

Use a scrubber with an arm on it by dipping the bristled end into the soap. Scrub up and into all areas. Use a bottle cleaner for the glove fingers to be sure to disturb all the debris in there. By thoroughly rinsing in cold water you will be good. Do this (I would expect) at least two or three times to be sure you have reached it all. By missing some, it just gets reactivated as soon as you wear the gear again and start to warm up and your nose will let you know!

With the pads, toss them all into your non-agitated washing machine. If you don’t have one, then go to the laundry mat and use a front loader. Use a good portion of your soap in these units (don’t over do it) but make sure you sud it up well. Then do a double rinse to be sure all the soapy residue is gone as it will make you very itchy if it is not.

Skates and helmet need to be done by hand in the sink with your scrubbers. Take the insoles out, unlaces the skates completely and you’re ready. Scrub the helmet everywhere inside. Remove any headbands that are velcro’ed on and scrub that too. Scrub the chin cup especially. Very important and also the cage if there is one. Scrub the insoles with the brush as well as the laces. DO NOT PUT THE LACES IN THE MACHINE! They will wind all around everything and tightly and it is next to impossible to get it undone. But scrub the laces too. Scrub the skates with your scrubber inside all the way to where the toes go by bending back the tongue and throwing in lots of muscle to be sure you are disturbing the dirt and getting it loosened and out.

With the hockey bag itself, be sure to use cold water (be it in the tub if it is a wheeled goalie or player bag) with your soap and antiseptic. The bag houses all that noxious stuff so you KNOW it has to have some of that microbial growth on it. SCRUB IT LIKE CRAZY — RINSE THEN SCRUB IT LIKE A MAD PERSON ONCE MORE TO BE SURE! Hang to dry by bungee cords or whatever you have to suspend it so all water goes downward and out of the bag. Otherwise, tomorrow, (like I did), you will have skate pockets full of water and end compartments with water.

AIr dry now. do not use a machine to ‘tumble dry’ or any of that. As it dries be sure to flex the palms of your gloves and any other pieces with cotton, leather, clarino or any headbands. This will stop them from hardening as they dry and from becoming very course.

Once all dry (the next day at least so give yourself 24 hours to do it), reassemble all your pads back where they went. Make sure you put your hands into your gloves again too.Flex them around just to warm the gloves a bit to reshape to your hand. Shouldn’t take but a couple laps around the ice and you’re ready to go.

Studies have shown what grows on our gear, how to combat it with the pros I linked you to here, but lets face it, maybe Athletic Clean/Hockey Clean isn’t in your area what I have provided is approved by those same pros as I DO have them in my area and I do use their services and it is unreal! It is proactive how they do it so when you start to sweat it is combating that microbial growth it is amazing, but still, do it it home if you don’t have the pros as it makes a difference to your health and those you play with 100!

Folks the bottom line here is to have a hygienic mindset and you all clearly do. I’ve seen many players over the years get infection, one loose a baby finger, another had a chest infection directly due to the mould growth on their gear. With that said, keep your olfactory sensory keen and smell for when you start to notice it and when you do, get those newspapers going (in and out of the gloves and skates after every skate) and pull it out after a day to de-moisturize skates and glove and even helmet.

Best to you all! Lets keep it clean out there in every way we can and play this game we all love so much!

You make a good point, Faye! 🙂 My husband doesn’t play, so I was writing about how I was my sons’ equipment. I imagine if my hubby played, I’d be having him handle his own. lol As for your husbands gear, you can ask at a sport shop about where you can take it to be cleaned. There are professional services that can sanitize the gear. Good luck! I feel your pain. 🙂

Thanks for all the helpful insight, Ken!

Hi…I too learned about that but with hockey equipment, due to the compression foam, resins and adhesives used not to mention metal clasps and the like will have their integrity broken down when too much ammonia is used. A natural oxidization takes place.

If you cannot get to the pros at Athletic Clean, then the best thing is get Zeolyte into your hockey bag all the time. Release the rock in the sun and it recharges when it discharges the trapped air that it absorbs. Another trick is to be sure you take your gear out to dry after every game. Kill the feeding ground for harmful contaminates such as MRSA and Staccybotrys. Finally, NEVER use heat when drying. That breaches the integrity of the gear 100%. DO NOT even use hot water, its a myth. Use cold water on your gear, put in some elbow grease and get in there then hang it out to dry in a room temperature area.

At least you are all thinking in the right direction, hygiene in protective sports equipment. It is something we need to teach young and old—-for sure the OLD! (That includes me folks!)

Your comment about the sun is an interesting one. So many people lay their gear out on a cold, sunny winter day to de-stink it. I think if you were to leave it on the line for days, multiple times per year, you might see some deterioration, in all the years I’ve been washing and line drying my boys’ equipment (2 or 3 times per year) I haven’t seen a problem. Thanks for the tips about the top loader. Hope you enjoy the detergent!

You are welcome, Samantha. And I know what you mean about them liking the smell. Ugh!

RBK, Easton, Bauer and all of the rest, including the CSA on the hygienic processing of helmets, will tell you that the debris and microbial build up needs to be scrubbed and extracted otherwise it can readily be reactivated.

athleticclean.com has been the ONLY company we have used since eSporta was proven to not eliminate contaminates as they claimed and that the ozone, as soon as we wore our gear next time, did nothing as the smell came back. Knowing that the smell is bacteria and other microbial growth eating the sweat and build up and then excrete it back on the equipment, we can definitively state that IF it starts up again right away that it wasn’t eliminated in the first place. Once we found them we have never looked back for our complete group. We have it done four times seasonally, they pick up and return the next day or on our timeline. We did extensive study as we had to. We had a room full of infection and couldn’t understand. They came in, lab tested our issues, found the problem and solved it. Talk about going beyond.

As a FYI-my brand new Maytag has a warranty clause that it is not made for protective sports equipment. Yes, trying to keep your gear clean yourself is commendable, however, I would let the pros do it. Hey they even repair everything and bring the skates back sharpened according to our hollow! Can’t beat that!

I wouldn’t want to over-do it as it may cause wear and tear. I generally do my boys’ a couple times per season, our season is 6 months long, and our winters are freezing here, so we store the gear in the garage during the week, which tends to freeze and somewhat de-stink the stuff.

Good point. It would’ve been more accurate to describe the detergent as being “free of ‘nasty’ chemicals”. Thanks for the heads up.

Interesting! Makes sense – it kills bacteria!

Hey Art,

The average consumer doesn’t need to buy a machine, that’s for businesses. It only costs $30 to clean your gear. You can find the nearest place on our locations page.

Only $14,000. What a deal. I’ll take 2.

Great tips here for sure! Nice to see someone educating people on the danger of that hockey stench! Washing gear helps for sure, but it takes a long time to dry. Check out our all-natural machine on our website. It’s a dry process using ozone, which kills MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant superbugs. It only takes 30 min to 1 hour, and you can even do skates and helmets. 150 locations for hockey moms all over North America.

Haha! So funny! And how timely your comment is, Joe! I JUST finished sewing name bars onto all of the jerseys for my 13 year old. And they HADN”T been washed first. Ewwww!! I’m more familiar than ever with that “boy smell” now!