You can wash all your gear. Except maybe skates.

Not every post is going to have deep insights. Sometimes a post will simply be practical. This is one of them.

I hate smelly hockey gear. It's gross. When I sit next to someone on the bench who obviously leaves the wet gear rotting in the bag, in the car, between uses, I want to gag. It smells like everything unpleasant about blue cheese (and I like blue cheese, as a food).

I learned from a teammate in my first year that all the gear is pretty washable.
She claimed that she washed all her gear after most games. That seems a bit extreme - I'm a fan of emptying my bag and letting stuff dry on a hockey tree, and only washing the layer of clothes that sits next to my skin - but it made sense. Let's face it, the stuff is designed for you to sweat into and get banged around in and possibly sliced with skates. The washing machine is not likely to hurt it!

For washing hockey gear, a front-loader works because there is no agitator to get in the way of stiff things like shin pads. I don't know if this would work in a top-loader. Anyway, take all the things that you generally think of as not being particularly washable - gloves, elbow pads, shoulder pads, shorts, shin pads, jill shorts - and split them up into loads that will fit into your machine (my stuff went in two loads). The shoulder pads and shorts are the biggest things so don't put those in together. Do up all the Velcro straps if you can. Take the suspenders off of the shorts. Run the wash using cold water on a gentle cycle (it will be fairly noisy). If your stuff is very smelly, some vinegar in the water at the beginning of the wash may help (I put it directly into the drum so it would combine with the detergent). Hang all the stuff to dry. Repeat with your other load(s). I did this with some borrowed gear that my husband used and it really took the edge off the stink, though it didn't eliminate it altogether. Washing the bag by itself as a separate load should also help.

The inside of your helmet can be cleaned with some rubbing alcohol on the pads inside, which can get a bit grimy. If you find yourself with breakouts (on your skin! not on the ice) after playing hockey you probably need to clean your helmet a bit. I use a bandana under mine so it minimizes the buildup of human sludge on the helmet itself.

Indeed, you can wash all your gear. Except maybe skates.