What kind of skates are better?

For casual skating, it really doesn't matter much. If you just walk up and ask for skates, they will usually hand hockey skates to guys and figure skates to women. Usually their figure skates are white and many guys want the dark skates. Sexist it is but they cater to what most customers want. The biggest differences that you will notice from inline skating (Rollerblade is a brand, not a sport - people drive car, not ford them) are: - - Ice skates have much less sideways grip than inlines. If you have a good sideways stride (most beginners don't), you will need to shorten your stride and point your toes out more. - - Ice skates all have rocker, most inline skates have almost none. Rocker is the curve so that less of the blade touches the ice at any time. That is needed for them to work well. Most inlines start with no rocker (front and back wheels being raised slightly) but a minimal amount develops naturally as the end wheels wear. It take some getting used to the rocker since the ice skates will turn much more easily than the inlines. Hockey skates have more rocker than figure skates. If you are hard core into hockey, different player positions have different amounts of rocker. Ice speed skates have the least rocker and would feel the closest to inlines but I have never seen them for rent at a rink since most people find the length of the blades awkward.

Get hockey skates. You're a man. ps: Ice skating is slightly different than rollerblading, mostly for stops and edges.