Calhockey.com
Special Interest => Roller Hockey => Topic started by: TopCorns88 on March 12, 2018, 06:56:23 PM
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Looking to get feedback on this. Does anyone play, cross train? Where, why? Is hockey still hockey?
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Depends on the position of the player. Highly recommend that Ice Defensemen play Forward in Roller. Ice Forwards play Defense and Goalies skate out. if a goalie in ice, do not recommend that you play goal in Roller, they are completely different.
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hmm disagree somewhat. Roller is a great way to improve skill and have fun. Play what ever position you want.
Saying a ice goalie should not play roller goalie is like saying baseball players should not golf because the swing is different.
Kids are smart, they figure it out.
Just let em play.
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hmm disagree somewhat. Roller is a great way to improve skill and have fun. Play what ever position you want.
Saying a ice goalie should not play roller goalie is like saying baseball players should not golf because the swing is different.
Kids are smart, they figure it out.
Just let em play.
Completely different push in roller hockey for goalies which completely screws up their form that they've worked so hard to develop during the ice season. Keep working with your ice goalie coach during the summer and skate out, skating is a core skill all goalies need to have. Not a matter of figuring it out, it's a matter of screwing up all the hard work with bad habits. It's nothing like baseball players not playing golf.
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Don't let the ice snobs fool you, some of the best pro ice hockey players and goalies to come out of socal played roller. as a matter of fact, Connor Mcdavid credits rollerblading for his speed on the ice and roller hockey in his driveway for his skills. Also, some of the best speed skaters in the world started as rollerbladers. Your brain is a fascinating thing. it can decipher the differences between a lot of different complicated things. Btw, here are some terrible ice hockey players who grew up playing roller hockey. Tomas Tatar, Ryan Kessler, Paul Stastny, bobby ryan, Sam Gagner, Beau Bennet, Chris Terry, Cory Conacher, Dylan Strome, jason Zucker, Joe ward, Pat Maroon, Charlie Coyle, on and on etc....
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hmm disagree somewhat. Roller is a great way to improve skill and have fun. Play what ever position you want.
Saying a ice goalie should not play roller goalie is like saying baseball players should not golf because the swing is different.
Kids are smart, they figure it out.
Just let em play.
Completely different push in roller hockey for goalies which completely screws up their form that they've worked so hard to develop during the ice season. Keep working with your ice goalie coach during the summer and skate out, skating is a core skill all goalies need to have. Not a matter of figuring it out, it's a matter of screwing up all the hard work with bad habits. It's nothing like baseball players not playing golf.
I agree its a totally different game for a goalie. Just don't agree that it screws anything up. Walking is totally different then skating my friend, Yet we still walk.
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Alright, I’m picking up what your laying down. This is exactly the sort of input needed. Roller hockey as a supplement and fun extension of the hockey experience is how we are approaching it. Just running with the in-house kids and staying in the game. For now.
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Both my kids played roller, and at first it screws up they're ice game as skaters because they end up doing these big looping turns like they on the roller rink. they get used to it after a while and most kids can do both without screwing up the other technique. but, you can always tell the kid who plays roller more when they are on the ice...
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It is a great way to practice, but you have to beat them to get them to stop doing mohawks on the ice.
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Maybe. But, no offense, if the player cannot make the adjustments to excel at both, then odds are when the age out, they will end up in the beer league.
Great players can play both w/o any issues - they are natural athletes.
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Don't they all end up in the beer league?
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Maybe. But, no offense, if the player cannot make the adjustments to excel at both, then odds are when the age out, they will end up in the beer league.
Great players can play both w/o any issues - they are natural athletes.
They all end up in beer league anyway. Some just spend more time and money to get there. Even the natural athletes.
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Why would roller hockey be a nay? My kid plays it and likes it more than ice hockey - less bs, less thuggery, players seems to be more into teamwork.
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AMEN TO THAT. ALSO A LOT LESS TIME CONSUMING, FRACTION OF COST, AND MUCH SMALLER TEAMS SO PLAYTIME RATIO IS HUGE.
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Fun tidbit about roller hockey history in SoCal...
For those familiar with now defunct T.I.D.E.S. roller hockey in house league, which originated on the blacktop playground of Lincoln elementary school in Redondo Beach (used border patrols as boards) and moved to a nicer outdoor facility at Adams Middle School in Redondo, a small tournament team was formed called the Tidal Waves.
In order to fund our tournament expenses, travel costs, and jerseys the parents would run a "snack shack" at our rink during in-house game weekends and cook up tri-tip sandwiches, philly cheesesteaks, etc and sell drinks/candy. It was a great family atmosphere.
The Tidal Waves team was made up of various players from the '90-'92 birth year, and probably saw about 15-20 players come through during the 3 years in existence. We played in various tournaments, never were the best team, or even in the highest division usually, and basically only played roller until 2000 after Toyota Sports Center was built. Back then there were no birth year teams, the cut off was September (?), so the team had to split for ice classifications and played mite/squirt ice hockey.
Of that group of 15-20 roller players there were some pretty decent skaters to come out of there:
Beau Bennett - NHL and D1 Denver University
Max Edson - D1 Air Force Academy
Jason Torf - D1 Air Force Academy
Wade Bennett - D1 Denver University
Brett Beebe -D1 Western Michigan University
Gudger Gentzler - D1 Colgate University
Tyler Maxwell - WHL
Not sure what the roller hockey landscape looks like today, but it offered a fun, competitive, and AFFORDABLE alternative to ice hockey in the late 90s/early '00s. Wherever you are, just get better and enjoy coming to the rink every day and things will work themselves out. More practice, more private lessons and more games doesn't always mean more success.
Remember....It's supposed to be fun, not every piece of hockey needs to be dissected into whether it is good or bad for development
Pictures below:
1) Tidal Waves members at the Bennett home in 1998
2) Same group (minus 1) at the Bennett house in 2016 on Beau's day with the Stanley Cup
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Great observation. As adults, we seem to sometimes take all the fun out of the fun things in life
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i think that's why kids play roller, because it's fun!. I think coaches and parents want to win so bad that they have taken some of the fun out of ice hockey.
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At the younger ages nearly all of the top ice players play roller extensively. Those kids simply get significantly more time playing the game and really start to pull away. It also teaches a ton of concepts that dont get taught as well on ice because of the open rink 4v4 format, such as playing with your head up, creative playmaking etc. Roller kids also pick up passing much earlier because it is easier with more space and necessary for success in roller. As kids get older you see less kids play because the ice hockey commitments pick up. The bad habits are usually only transferred to ice if the kid is very young, like 10 and under, or if they dont play a lot of either ice or roller. Kids that play a lot of both can transition very easily and the roller kids even learn how to sort of stop with the super soft wheels.
Most importantly, roller is all about fun and helps kids develop a passion for the game. Tournaments are so frequent that winning and losing doesnt mean as much. Kids have fun hanging out at the rinks watching other older kids play and meeting kids on other teams. Parents are way more level headed and everyone usually knows each other because it is a smaller group of families.
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I have to throw my two cents in here. My son started plying roller at 5years old. @ 12, he decided to try ice. Although he knew the game well, he couldn't skate to save his life the first time he tried was hilarious. It only took 2 months to transition to ice through almost daily summer clinics, privates, pick ups and open skates at local rinks. In his first year playing ice, he tried out and landed on a really good AA team. He is at the bottom of the totem pole but holding his own.
Now we have seen both ice and roller and I can tell you that roller has a "fun aspect" to it. The teams are smaller, the families get to know each other quickly, the tournaments are monthly, the kids "SKATE" in-between games non stop and the "WIN" are not as important as they seem to be in ice. My son is LOVING the new aspect of being on an ice team. Its faster, its different, its exciting, but he has learned alot playing roller....and he did it at half the cost over the last 7 years.
Some people "knock" roller, I haven't quite figured out why. The top scorer on our current ice team is a dual player and does as much roller as he does ice.
On another note, I think my son has a few bad habits that he hasn't lost yet on the ice. His TURNS are like monster sized semi circles that take up half the width of the floor! The other kids hockey stop and bolt the other direction. On roller, wide sweeping turns are more common and my player hasn't lost that habit yet. Were working on it.
There won't be much roller going on this year, as the AA schedule doesn't allow for much free time, but it was AWESOME while it lasted and there is always those early summer roller tournaments to jump into. StateWars, Narch Finals and Junior Olympics.
I think that the So-Cal roller hockey scene has its place and should be embraced as an EXCELLENT feeding ground for new ice players...especially at the squirt / peewee level.
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Very well said and good summary. Those who skip the roller scene really miss out on this special time as it is the closest substitute for after school pond hockey back east. Some of the best beer leaguers still play roller weekly. That there says it all.
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Connor McDavid on roller hockey: https://www.tsn.ca/mcdavid-credits-rollerblading-for-smooth-skating-1.1183845
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I grew up playing Ice and had a long youth career up into college. As an adult I had all but given up on the sport. I was visiting a high school friend of mine who had some roller blades and let me try them out. Within 5 minutes I was sold. For the next year or so I played a bunch of roller exclusively and that experience sucked me back into playing Ice.
After about a year of roller, my ice skating technique was fairly messed up, and it took me probably 4-5 hours my Ice skating get back the feeling of skating normally again, but after that, I had no problem going back and forth between them.
For a while I played both Ice and Roller and it wasn't unusual for me to have a couple of hours of Ice, and a couple of hours of roller in any given week. I also spent a lot of hours playing pickup in the parking lot of the Santa Monica peer, where they used to, and perhaps stilll do play using trashcans as goals. As an adult, I can speak to the benefits they provide in tandem. Skating on ice is certainly different, and the difference in strategy between the rulesets of Ice and roller are substantial, but what you get from roller is often improved puck handling skills due to the fact that you have to constantly and assuredly attend to the puck since it doesn't glide the way a puck on ice does. Your stick handling has to be cleaner and stronger, and you often see people who have played a lot of roller exhibit great puck control and that translates well to Ice.
Anyone who tells you that roller isn't worth doing or is in some way detrimental to the Ice game doesn't know what they are talking about.
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Yay. Certainly not all, but many of the top ice players in the area have leveraged roller to some extent for its numerous benefits, with making hockey even more FUN being the number one reason, as the top ice players typically dominate the roller tournaments. There's a new batch of success stories that will go even further in proving roller has posed little to no adverse impact on reaching some of the highest levels on the ice.