About
Sports gear sizing without the checkout guesswork
WhatGearFits was built by a parent who kept buying the wrong size — and who eventually got tired of leaving the sporting goods store unsure.
Why this site exists
The first time I tried to buy youth hockey skates, I spent forty minutes in the store and still left uncertain. The brand chart on the box disagreed with the in-store sizing guide. The staff measured my son's foot but the skates they suggested felt different from what the chart said. I bought a pair, they were slightly too large, and he spent the first three weeks of the season skating on loose boots that made everything harder.
That experience repeated itself — bat lengths for baseball, glove sizes, shin guard sizing for soccer. Every sport had its own logic. Every brand had slightly different sizing. League rules added another layer. And most of the information online was either buried in product pages, scattered across forum posts, or written in a way that assumed you already knew the sport well.
WhatGearFits was built to fix that. The goal is simple: give parents the measurements to take, the size ranges to start with, and the warnings to watch for — all in plain language, before they get to checkout.
Who publishes WhatGearFits
WhatGearFits is a small independent publisher. Sizing guides and parent articles are published under the WhatGearFits editorial team byline, which links back to this page and our documented research standards. We are not a sporting-goods manufacturer, retailer, league, medical provider, or safety-certification organization.
Editorial questions and corrections go directly to hello@whatgearfits.com. Our source hierarchy, drafting-tool disclosure, and publication-quality bar are public in the editorial policy.
What the site covers
The site focuses on youth and beginner gear sizing across 15 sports, including hockey, baseball, soccer, football, lacrosse, basketball, softball, golf, swimming, skiing, snowboarding, wrestling, tennis, volleyball, and track and field. Source-reviewed guides are published first for the decisions where primary manufacturer, league, governing-body, or standards guidance is available.
Every guide in the public library is structured around a practical parent flow: find the likely starting range from the table, take the measurements the chart actually needs, run the fit check at the store or when the package arrives, and confirm against the brand's official size chart before keeping the gear.
The site also includes age-based guides for parents who want to start with their child's age before digging into measurements, and comparison guides for questions like “indoor vs. turf soccer shoes” or “what size shin guards for a 10-year-old.”
Editorial approach
Every guide in the public library starts from the measurement that actually matters — head circumference for helmets, shin length for shin guards, player height for hockey sticks. We avoid starting from age because age alone produces too many wrong answers, especially for protective gear.
We use general sizing patterns drawn from brand charts, league guidelines, and common parent questions. We do not claim that any recommendation is a guaranteed fit — youth gear fit depends on body proportion, the specific brand and model, sock or padding thickness, and how the child moves. Our guidance is a starting range, not a final answer.
Protective gear — helmets, shoulder pads, and similar items — always carries a stricter warning: measure first, use the brand's official chart, and check the fit in person before relying on any general guide, including ours.
Content is reviewed when brand charts are updated, when league rules change, or when reader feedback points to an error. We encourage anyone who spots an outdated figure or a better approach to send a correction.
Affiliate links
Some product links on the site are affiliate links. If you click a link and buy something, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate relationships do not affect the core sizing guidance. We link to products as comparison starting points, not as endorsements of a specific brand or fit.
The full disclosure is on our affiliate disclosure page.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or suggestions are welcome. You can reach us at hello@whatgearfits.com or through the contact page.