And to think that I'd always considered the newer style of hockey skates to be glorified death wellies... I honestly thought that you must just throw them away and get a new pair when the blades wore out. Or that maybe the blades didn't really wear out because hockey skaters don't work as hard as figure skaters... <makes popcorn and waits for reaction>
Many hockey skaters don't put in the effort to practice skating drills, they just want to play hockey. I am always amazed at how fast figure skaters go, they seem to be elegantly sliding along in their pretty little way (intentional sexist stereotype warning ... ) but in reality they are at warp speed and well beyond Earth's gravitational escape velocity.
Cheap skates are thrown away but they're not supportive enough for hockey. And at the top level apparently boots can wear out in one season, in part because the stench would put Novichok to shame.
You'd think...
Some people really do require orthotics to correct problems that come from the foot or further up the leg. It's not just the ankle. Others, well... One of the hardest parts of teaching is getting people to concentrate on that ankle control. Another hard part is getting them to understand that the basis of all skating is edges. Very few people actually really work on edges before they move on to the more ""exciting" things, such as turns and spins. Usually it's spins. Then they forget about the edges once they've been "signed off". I'm constantly taking people back to edges in order to sort out their three turns. But that's completely off topic and one of my personal rants!
To be honest I wish I'd learnt about edges and done edge drills at the outset, rather than trying to learn complex skills such as hockey stops. What I really like about my new skates is that I can really feel the edges. Oddly enough some good hockey skaters seem not to understand edges. I once did a one foot outside edge hockey stop (sliding forwards with one foot at right angles and on the outside edge) and a really good hockey player told me my skates needed sharpening as I was sliding sideways.