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There is a lower barrier to entry with Inline/Roller Hockey if you ask me. Grab a pair of inline skates, stick and puck/ball and boom your playing on any flat surface. Grab a group of friends or find a spot where theres a pick up game and you're playing. I'm with Miller, Long Island guy who got his start playing roller in the 90's where on every street you could find kids playing or at the local tennis court there'd be 'organized' games a few times a week and then there were leagues popping up all over. For parents its a way to test the waters to see if your kid is really serious about playing and then you can make the jump to ice if they're into it. For me roller was a springboard to ice hockey, fell in love with the game and all I wanted to do was play. Another way of looking at 'why play roller' is what it will bring to your ice game. Watch any hockey documentary or interview and every Canadian kid at some point talks about pond hockey and I would say for much of the US where it doesn't get cold enough roller serves as their pond hockey. No coaches telling you to get pucks deep or cover your point man, just you and your buds messing around, trying different moves, making your own game. I think theres a lot to say about that atmosphere where kids have no pressure on them and they can go out and just play. And then if you want to get into 'organized' roller or a league or tournaments theres a lot to be said about how the 4 on 4 game develops your ice game, whether that be individual patience with the puck or stickhandling in general. Then theres the positional aspect with no offsides where the game changes to a puck control and I think a ton can be learned there to develop your hockey IQ. If you watch a high level roller game you will see how controlled the guys play, how they won't risk taking a shot if there isn't a good play or how if they don't see the right set up they'll take the puck back and re-group. You'll see how no one really plays a position, you can have a framework but the game can quickly develop to man on man where you end up all around the rink. I like to compare inline hockey to watching the old Russian teams before they were allowed to play in the NHL. Those teams would gain the blue line and if they didn't have anything would come out, regroup and move back up the ice as a unit. To me thats roller hockey and I would say 9 out of 10 youth hockey coaches would lose their minds if they ever saw their players do that. My entire high school ice hockey team played roller at some point and so did our coach, we managed to create a little bit of a dynasty winning a few NY State championships back in the day and I would say a lot of how we played was inspired by roller hockey style puck control. So yea, why play roller? Because its fun, you can pretty much play any where, and it will help your ice game. And now you can go to college and play roller too. And if you want you can go play some tournaments and have a fun little vacation while playing some damn good hockey as well.

Guys, wrong thread.

Well, a user called “hockeyshield” who has zero posts starts a topic asking about playing with facemasks instead of using the one that exists already. You moderate a forum long enough you see patterns that raise red flags.

I play roller. I grew up on long island where roller has been very popular, especially in the 90s/2000s. I played some ice but it was very expensive and I think when I was a kid the nights of ice hockey in long beach conflicted with something else I had going on so I played roller and stuck with it. We had a nice big outdoor rink a few minutes away and there were pickup games there literally every day from when I was like 12 until after I finished high school. The only expense was gear basically, and it was a lot more fun. Great crew of guys and eventually we played together ecrha and competitive men's leagues. A bunch of the guys also got into ice in college, I had other extracurricular activities and roller was enough for me. They still try to get me to come and there was a period where I played drop in ice weekly, but I just like roller more. I like the speed of the game, it is more easy going and fun, just a different style of game. I also like the finesse of it, the style of the game that my team plays. I recently moved from NY to Phoenix az and am really just praying to find a good team with guys who like to play hard and don't take themselves to seriously. From Phoenix AZ (formerly NY)

Game One was the one I thought the Islanders needed the most. They had 5 days less rest and came off a series that they nearly blew against Philly. Jumping out to a lead would have really given them energy, now they've got their work cut out for them against a really good team. We'll see how they adjust tonight against the fastest team they've seen yet.

I remember my first Aluminum stick and thinking how light it was. Funny compared to Composite sticks of today.

Part of the problem is the Mako came out when Easton was going through a pretty steep decline in popularity. If Bauer re-released the Mako II with an Edge holder, new graphics, and called it the UltraBoomADVSonicLite with a superdynaflex tendon guard it would probably fly off the shelves at levels the Mako never came close to.