Nike Skates

Nike is a long time sports equipment manufacturer. In the early 1990s, they began to design the Nike skate and ice skates, Nike inline skates and hockey sticks, as well as other skating equipment. In 1994, they absorbed Bauer skates and seriously began to produce Nike hockey skates. Over the years, they have managed to improve their product from what some called “cheap Nike hockey skates.” In 1997, Phoenix center Jeremy Roenick, Detroit's Sergei Fedorov and Toronto's Mats Sundin gave their NHL-approved endorsement. Wayne Gretskey joined the bandwagon in 1998, wearing Nike ice skates in the Olympics.

The Nike Quest hockey skate and the V series were improvements over the earlier lines. One of their selling points - Nike addressed two issues: width and comfort. Nike wanted their skates to be synonymous with comfort: Nike comfort ice skates, if you will. They touted comfort right out of the box, pushing other skate manufacturers to consider this issue seriously. CCM looked to the Nike Quest skate for their Vector and Externo models as did Easton for the SBX series.

With the Nike Ignite ice skates and earlier ice skates, the company tested this theory. Nike backed the Nike ignite skates with a hard outer shell, injecting it with synthetic foam-like material to create varied levels of stiffness. The Nike Flexlite hockey skates, soft booted and very light skates with a very hard exterior for rigidity was another example of Nike attempting to play in the big leagues. It was their sixth line in seven years of hockey skate manufacturing. Nike Quest skates have been more successful.

Nike has always produced skates wider than their competitors’ brands. Whether you opt for a Nike junior skate or a Nike inline hockey skate, you can select wider lengths. A Nike skate in EE width is common for all Nike lines. A problem is whether choosing a tighter skate would be better after skating for a while. Moreover, the width of Nike skates is not consistent. In the Quest line, the forefoot is wide, the heel, narrow and the V series is simply wide, meant for very wide feet. The Flexlights are more average all-over.