The oldest pair of (ice) skates known date back to about 3000 B.C., found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. The skates were made from the leg bones of large animals, holes were bored at each end of the bone and leather straps were used to tie the skates on. An old Dutch word for skate is "schenkel" which means "leg bone".
By the time a reasonable precursor of hockey came along (originally known as Ijscolf, or Colf on ice), the skates were handcrafted by blacksmiths from iron and/or steel. No two pair were alike as the craftsmen used patterns of their own design. Essentially, the skates consisted of blades of iron and/or steel embedded into blocks of wood which were in turn strapped to the skaters boots with either leather or rope fittings.
Chat with our AI personalities