Ice Skating Equipment Key Terms

Get your glide on with the right ice skating jargon

By Lisa Maloney

Whether you've taken up ice skating as a personal hobby or are fielding a company team, having the right equipment is essential. While ice skating can be an enjoyable recreational or team-building exercise, skates that don't fit or the wrong type of skates quickly turn it into an exercise in misery.

Understanding the skate gear you're about to buy is as simple as getting a few key terms under your belt. Use the following terms as a starting point to help you make sense of ice skating equipment.

Figure skates

Figure skates are specifically designed to facilitate the complex movements made by competitive figure skaters. Recreational skaters often will wear less expensive versions of expert figure skates.
Try: Dick's Sporting Goods offers a description of figure skates and parts, as well as detailed guidance on how to select and size figure skates for both recreational and figure skaters.

Mounting and warping

How the blade of a figure skate affixes to and aligns with the boot of the skate is critical to using the equipment. Mounting refers to how the blade itself is joined to the boot. Warping is, as in wider contexts, twisting or bending away from the boot and may result from improper mounting.
Try: The Recreational Figure Skating FAQ details the problems that may arise from poorly mounted skate blades and how they might be fixed.

Speed skates

Speed skates are a specialized type of skating equipment reserved for training and competition in timed trials. They emphasize the fastest forward movement possible without any allowance for the complicated lateral movements that may be performed by hockey or figure skates.
Try: WiseGeek offers a detailed explanation of speed skates and how they work.

Slap blades

Slap blades are a specialized type of skate blade used specifically on speed-skating equipment. They offer such a decided advantage in skating times that the winning times of skaters using this type of equipment are being separated from those of speed skaters using conventional speed-skating blades on their skates.
Try: MomsTeam.com gives an explanation of the difference between clap and slap speed skates, which use slap blades, and conventional-style speed skates.

ROH, or radius of hollow

The ROH, or radius of hollow, is a measure of how shallow or deep the groove is between the sharp edges of your skate blade. A shorter ROH means the groove is deeper. This term applies to any type of ice-skating equipment with a blade.
Try: Chuck-Wright.com offers a detailed explanation of ROH and its effects on a skate's performance.

Skate guards versus soakers

Skate guards are plastic covers for ice skate blades that protect both the blade and surfaces being walked on. Soakers, on the other hand, are put on your skate blades after you've skated and help protect the blades from corrosion.
Try: The Triple Axel covers the different between skate guards and soakers.