Aside from the essential triad of blade maintenance, your boots and blades will be a lot happier (and last a lot longer) if you store them carefully at home and while traveling.
Storage on your Travels
The biggest thing here is to minimize squeezing, bumping, and jabbing. I recommend getting a bag with two large compartments–one for each skate–so you don’t have to squeeze both, Tetris-style, into one pocket. If you’re headed on a plane, try not to tag the bag with your skates in it since you don’t know how roughly those are handled. Instead, pop them into your carry-on (with soft guards on the blades, of course).
Storage at Home
First order of business: Water control.
When you get back to home sweet home, I highly recommend taking your soft guards off of your blades and placing your skates somewhere to air out. This prevents both moisture and odor from building up. Where and how should you place your skates you ask?
- Find a room, preferably on the larger side, that gets plenty of air circulation (in other words, just don’t put it in your bathroom) and minimal direct sunlight. Mine are in my living room under the piano. As a rule of thumb, your skates shouldn’t be snoozing anywhere too damp or hot.
- The flooring should not be stone or cement–carpet works great, wood boards are fine too. Since your blades are exposed and resting on the ground, be careful when setting them down and place them out of the way so no one accidentally punts your precious across the house.
- Lean your skates against something or leave them resting on their sides. I don’t recommend placing your skates upside down, since it could crease the tongue of the boot, possibly compromising ankle support.
Reminder: You should NEVER leave your blades in hard guards for long, especially if you haven’t wiped them down!
Do leave your soft guards, hard guards, skating socks, gel pads, boot covers, and towel (if applicable) out to dry too so they aren’t damp or smelly the next time you use them.
Second order of business: Odor control.
Your skates will not smell good if you leave them in your bag overnight. They also won’t smell good if you have long or frequent practices. So airing them out is essential to limiting the ew factor. Other than pulling the tongue of the boot out a little to let more air into the dark reaches of your skate, I recommend purchasing an odor absorber for skates/shoes and sticking those in whenever you’re home. You can also try out odor balls and sprays.