WHAT'S THAT SMELL? FIGHT BACK

With every game, comes a new odor and hockey has a FUNK beyond any I have ever experienced.  I believe it is a bad combination of spit on the watered down ice, and sweat which together S-T-I-N-K.

It is unbelievable that this smell accumulates from even the youngest players' gear  and it emanates from EVERYTHING.  If you don't believe me, leave a youth hockey bag in your car overnight, it will be enough to GAG you the minute you get it. 

Febreze is great initially, as I spray it in my kids bags, but you know that light flowery scent really does not MIX with the Tough Hockey Players we are molding(lol).  I have a few other solutions that will help, but will not eliminate the odors. 

My best attempts to date have been with actually eliminating accumulated moisture.

1) I use dryer sheets cut in half, and place on in each glove, that allows for a good smell, in addition, crumpled up newspaper in the gloves and skates serve as a great way to take some of that accumulated moisture OUT of those items. Scented Hockey Balls in each skate have served as a great cover-up as well, however it does not ELIMINATE odor. 

1a)  I also have a home made drying rack and EVERYTHING must get hung on it. 

When this does not work, there are a bunch of other solutions that I will be offering but you can also try:

2) I buy SCENTSY crystals and place them in nude ladies knee-highs, these penetrate the smell really well and there are several scents.  Unlike other items that mask odors these crystals live ON and ON.  The smells range from French Lavender to Coconut Lemongrass and a little goes a long way.  The Crystals will not ELIMINATE the odor but it will make it so much more tolerable.

3) Odor Eliminators, there are a bunch of them on the market from balls to chunks, I will be offering a few suggestions on these ELIMINATORS in a separate article.

4) Drying Racks.  These are great if you have the room and a person committed to HANGING the stuff but a rack is only as good as the person who is unloading and kids... don't like to clean up after themselves. 

I have much more to offer, this is only a snippet of the up and coming and I welcome your great suggestions to my e mail    blogsabouthockey(at)gmail.com