Reviewed by Evan Lewis, PhD. Last updated August 2026.
Hockey skates smell because the smell is made on the foot and then stored in the skate. Sweat itself is close to odourless. Bacteria on the sole break down amino acids in it and produce isovaleric acid, which is the sharp cheesy note. The liner soaks that up and never fully dries in a hockey bag.
What are the four steps that make the smell?
Sweat, bacteria, acid, and a liner that stores the result. Here they are in order.
1. The sole sweats hard. The bottom of the foot carries one of the densest concentrations of sweat glands on the body. What comes out is mostly water, salt and amino acids, and on its own it barely smells at all.
2. Skin bacteria feed on it. A 2015 study mapped the bacterial communities across eight sites on the foot and found Staphylococcus making up almost the entire bacterial population on the plantar surface, at far higher levels than on the top of the foot. A sealed skate at body temperature is the best day those bacteria will ever have.
3. Leucine becomes acid. In that same study, isovaleric acid was not detected on the top of the foot and was present on the sole, tracking the Staphylococcus numbers. That's the compound people describe as cheesy or sweaty-sock.
4. The liner keeps it. Closed-cell foam and the fabric over it absorb everything and hold it. Then the skate goes in a zipped bag in a car boot.
Read that back and notice where the smell is produced. Three of the four steps happen on skin. Only the last one happens in the boot, which is why every product aimed at the boot only ever half works.
Why do hockey skates smell like cat pee?
Enough people search this exact phrase that it deserves a straight answer. It's the ammonia note, and it's a different compound from the cheesy one.
Sweat carries urea. Bacteria break urea down and ammonia is one of the products, and ammonia is the sharp note in a litter tray. Heavier sweating and a longer time sealed in warm damp gear push it further along, which is why the ammonia note is stronger in skates than in ordinary shoes and stronger after a tournament weekend than after one practice.
Same for the version people describe as fishy or like mildew. Different bacteria, different by-products, same underlying process.
Why don't washing and freezing fix it?
Because neither one reaches the skin, and a domestic freezer only slows things down. The freezer trick is the most popular advice on the internet and it doesn't hold up.
When researchers froze contaminated cotton pads at −20 °C for 24 hours, 48 hours and a full week, every sample grew back within days. Domestic freezers slow microbial life down, they don't end it. The same study found tumble drying ineffective, while a 60 °C wash removed the organisms and a 40 °C wash did not.
So the temperature that works is one you can apply to socks and a removable liner. It isn't one you can apply to a skate.
What each of the usual fixes reaches
| The fix | What it touches | What it leaves alone |
|---|---|---|
| Baking soda in the boot | Absorbs moisture and some odour molecules | Steps 1, 2 and 3 entirely |
| A night in the freezer | Slows things down for a night | A week at −20 °C did not kill fungal spores in testing |
| A perfumed spray | Covers the note for a few hours | The bacteria still on the skin |
| Drying the skate properly | Step 4, the storage half | Everything happening on the foot |
| Drying the skate and a foot routine | Both halves | Nothing much, if you do both |
How do you actually dry a skate?
Open it right up, pull the footbed out, wipe the inside while it's warm, and move air through it. Most people do a version of this badly. Done properly it takes thirty seconds after each skate.
- Unbuckle and loosen everything so the tongue falls forward and the boot opens up. A skate laced shut does not dry.
- Pull the footbed out. It's the wettest single component and it dries separately in a fraction of the time.
- Wipe the inside with a dry cloth while it's still warm. You're removing liquid before it soaks in.
- Air, not heat. A boot dryer with a fan is fine. A radiator or a hair dryer on hot can distort the liner and the heat moulding.
- Never zip the bag on wet gear. This is the one that undoes all the others. Skates out of the bag, every time.
If the liner is removable, wash it hot. If it isn't, drying is your whole lever on that half. A review of shoe and sock sanitization makes the same point about footwear generally, noting that recurrence and relapse rates for superficial fungal infections of the feet run high, at 10% to 53%.
What is the half nobody does?
The foot. It's where three of the four steps happen and it's the part every skate product ignores.
The routine is short. Wash and dry the feet after skating, properly, including between the toes. Fresh socks for every session rather than the pair from the bag. Socks washed at 60 °C. And something on the skin at the end of the day.
That's where Sole Shield sits. Two ingredients, aqueous iodine and distilled water, sprayed on the feet and into the boot after a session. Let's be clear about what it is and isn't. It's not a deodoriser and it doesn't perfume anything. There's no fragrance in it and nothing to mask a smell with. It's a daily step on the skin, which happens to be where the smell is made, and it goes into the boot as well because that's where the skin has been.
It's also water-based rather than alcohol-based, which matters for a kid whose heels are raw from a new pair of skates. No sting, and no brown mark on white laces.
What about the bag?
The bag is the multiplier. Everything wet goes in together, the zip closes, and it sits in a warm car.
Empty it after every session. All of it, not just the skates. Hang the jersey and the base layers, stand the skates and the gloves out, leave the bag open. It sounds obvious and almost nobody does it in the middle of a season.
When is the smell telling you something else?
When it arrives with itching, flaking or cracked skin. Odour on its own is normal and not a medical problem. Worth a proper look if it comes with itching, flaking or cracked skin between the toes, a persistently damp foot, or a toenail that's thickening or discolouring.
That combination points at athlete's foot rather than plain sweat, and it's very common in anyone in enclosed sports footwear for hours. StatPearls notes that the risk of tinea infections is elevated with excessive sweating, and that wearing occlusive shoes for extended periods predisposes people to dermatophyte infections. If that's the picture, the athlete's foot guide is the more useful read, and the recurrence article covers what to do if it keeps returning.
For hockey parents
Three things, in order of return on effort.
Unpack the bag after every single session. Buy a second pair of socks so there's always a dry pair. Get them washing and drying their own feet after skating, because it's a two-minute habit that outlasts the season and the sport.
The rest is optional.
How do you get rid of the smell in hockey skates?
You work both halves at once. Dry the boot after every session, and look after the skin that fills it. Do one and skip the other and you are back where you started inside a fortnight.
Here is the short version if you want to make hockey skates not smell for the rest of the season:
- Unpack the bag every time. Skates out, gloves out, bag left open.
- Footbed out, laces loose, air moving through the boot.
- A dry pair of socks for every session, washed at 60 °C.
- Wash and dry the feet after skating, between the toes included.
- Something on the skin at the end of the day, because that is where three of the four steps happen.
Hockey skates stink worst after a tournament weekend, and that is not because they are dirty in the way people assume. They are a warm damp container holding what the foot produced over three days.
Common questions
Why do hockey skates smell so bad?
Because the smell is made on the foot and stored in the boot. Bacteria on the sole break down amino acids in sweat and produce isovaleric acid, the cheesy note. The skate liner absorbs it and rarely dries fully, especially when gear is zipped into a bag straight after a session.
Why do my hockey skates smell like cat pee?
That is the ammonia note. Sweat carries urea, bacteria break it down, and ammonia is one of the products, which is the same sharp smell as a litter tray. Heavier sweating and longer periods sealed in warm damp gear make it more noticeable.
How do you deodorize hockey skates?
Deodorising in the usual sense means covering the note with fragrance, and that lasts a few hours. What changes the smell is drying the boot after every session and looking after the skin the boot is built around. Pull the footbed, loosen the laces, move air through, and wash and dry your feet after skating.
Does putting skates in the freezer work?
Not reliably. In testing, contaminated pads frozen at minus 20 degrees Celsius for 24 hours, 48 hours and a full week all grew back within days. Freezing slows microbial activity rather than ending it, so the smell usually returns once the skates warm up.
Can you wash hockey skates?
You can wash removable liners and footbeds, and 60 degrees Celsius is the temperature shown to remove dermatophyte conidia in laundry testing. Do not submerge the whole skate. Water gets into the boot construction and the rivets, and the boot will not dry through before the next session.
How do you dry hockey skates properly?
Loosen the laces so the tongue falls open, pull out the footbed, wipe the inside while the boot is still warm, and dry with moving air rather than heat. Never leave skates in a closed bag. A radiator or hot hair dryer can distort the liner and the heat moulding.
Is smelly feet a sign of fungus?
Not on its own. Odour is a normal result of sweat and skin bacteria. It is worth a closer look when it comes with itching, flaking or cracking between the toes, or a toenail that is thickening or changing colour, since occlusive sports footwear and heavy sweating are both known risk factors for athlete's foot.
The bottom line
The skate is not the source. It's the container.
Dry the container, and do something about the foot that fills it. Do one without the other and you'll be back in a fortnight.
If it's the shoes rather than the skates, the same logic applies to smelly shoes and boots, and how to disinfect shoes covers what each cleaning method actually reaches.
Evan Lewis, PhD, specializes in natural and nutritional therapies for the prevention and management of chronic diseases and their complications. His research spans chronic disease, diabetes complications, clinical nutrition, and nerve health, including the development of topical iodine therapy for foot care and wound health. IodinePure products are listed with Health Canada as cosmetics. This article is general information, not a diagnosis.
Sources: Stevens D, et al. Spatial variations in the microbial community structure and diversity of the human foot is associated with the production of odorous volatiles. FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2015;91(1). Akhoundi M, et al. Effect of Household Laundering, Heat Drying, and Freezing on the Survival of Dermatophyte Conidia. J Fungi (Basel). 2022;8(5):546. Gupta AK, Versteeg SG. The Role of Shoe and Sock Sanitization in the Management of Superficial Fungal Infections of the Feet. J Am Podiatr Med Assoc. 2019. Nigam PK, Syed HA, Saleh D. Tinea Pedis. StatPearls, 2023.
