Query: My use of terminology was awful, what I meant to say is that figure skates have a spin rocker just behind the toe pick, which aids spins and 3 turns. Hockey skates don’t have that. My understanding is that rocker refers to an area with a given radius of curvature, or curvatures. Thus my inline skates have no rocker ie all wheels touch the ground together.
Hockey skates can be profiled, with multiple regions each with their own curvature. Mine are stock, I think most of the blade has just one radius of curvature.
tstop4me: In my opinion the adult male you spoke to is ill informed. I’m only a low level rec player, but fancy footwork has helped me get goals. A friend told me I once did a very fancy move during play, I didn’t even notice, it was just natural. Good footwork allows a player to get round opponants, or throw them off. NHL players are very skilled skaters, albeit not as technically advanced as elite figure skaters. They have a subset of their skills, which they adapt for hockey rather than elegance.
Regarding edge control, my coach taught me to skate with longer more efficient strides, and to rip the ice less. A lot of rec hockey players love to rip the ice, making crunching sounds, but that wastes energy. Proper edge control means quieter skating, using the energy to move faster or further rather than breaking up the ice and creating friction. So if you waste less energy, you tire less quickly, and have more energy when you need it, to chase down an opponant, or make that break with the puck for the opposition zone. If you have correct posture and longer strides, you get more efficient skating.