The Ultimate Hockey Shoe Guide
What hockey shoes should I buy?
We know buying the right field hockey shoes can be a little daunting: we stock over 40 different shoes in store at the start of the season, and with prices ranging from £50 to £150+, there will be lots of questions we hope we can help with!
“What hockey shoes should I buy” is one of the most common questions we get asked in-store and online, we also get asked a few different questions about hockey shoes like:"
Does my child need hockey shoes?
What’s the difference between hockey shoes and trainers?
What makes a hockey shoe different from a trainer?
Do hockey shoes give me more grip?
Kids vs adult hockey shoes, what’s the difference?
We’ll answer a few of these questions below to give you our expertise.
Does my child need hockey shoes?
The honest answer is that we can’t recommend this enough! With the speed of play, even in junior hockey, there is a definite likelihood that a junior player will get hit in the feet at some point during their early years either by a ball or a stray stick. Hockey shoes, unlike trainers, are built up a lot more at the front and sides to offer more protection from those unexpected impacts.
A junior hockey shoe is specifically designed for use on an AstroTurf pitch. These pitches- whilst ‘all weather’- can often be slippery when wet or cold and a hockey shoe is designed to give players the best grip possible.
What is the difference between hockey shoes and trainers?
Trainers are exactly what you’d expect to wear when going out for a run, or a casual pair of trainers to wear day to day. Some of these are designed for specific activities or purely to look good. The problem with playing hockey in trainers is that they don’t offer any of the required support, grip or protection that you need.
Hockey shoe grip
Hockey shoes, unlike trainers, have a much harder sole which is designed to give hockey players much more traction on hockey surfaces including water-based or sand-dressed hockey pitches. A lot of players are now adding even more traction by wearing grip socks.
Hockey shoe support
For senior and some junior players, the support offered by hockey shoes is crucial. We often see players with flat arches, wearing orthotics or with issues like Osgood Schlatter disease. In this respect, hockey shoes are designed to give the required support, especially around the ball of and heel of the foot.
Hockey shoe protection
A hockey shoe is specifically built up to offer more support from impacts. Whether that’s the random junior stick hitting a foot (we’ve all seen it) or someone who is a fly runner on a penalty corner who has to run straight towards a ball that’s coming up to 90mph at them, often at their feet! Hockey shoes don’t offer you complete protection, because if they did, they’d look like this
Do hockey shoes give me more grip?
The easy answer is yes. They have been designed from the ground up and often have similar grip characteristics to trail running shoes. Hockey Astros need to work well under a lot of stress and a lot of twisting and turning. There are a number of different treads available across brands like Adidas, Asics, Mizuno and Grays.
Kids vs adult hockey shoes, what’s the difference?
Yes, one of the biggest notable differences is usually price (and some of this is driven by not paying VAT on a size UK5 or lower).
However, the big difference is the materials that they are made from, and this is due to the forces going through a shoe. A good example would be that a 6-foot 5 adult and an 8 year old child would not put the same force through a shoe, meaning that an adult shoe needs to be able to withstand greater forces and weights going through them.
A good rule with adult shoes is that the more expensive the shoe, the greater the grip offered and the higher the material quality.
Check out more of our junior shoe range here, and if you want more advice click here to ask us any extra questions.
We carry a huge range of shoe from a number of leading brands including and here’s a few of our favourite sticks from each.
Asics
