Thanks to Tony and Lori

[RINK RAT 15 0]

For as long as I can remember people have been asking me why my son doesn't play roller hockey. My general answer was always " there's not allot of youth roller hockey in New England) thus making it hard for kids to play roller much less on a travel roller team. Well this past weekend at the Tab Ramos Sports Center ( Thanks as well to Chris Goshia) Rink Rat unvailed their brand new 10 and under team. This team is made up of a combination of kids from the Boston area and Cranston Rhode Island area (including my son Cameron and John Roderick Jr). All the kids are Ice hockey players and most have never skated on roller blades in the past. This was their first tourney ever and as expected had some difficulties making the transistion from Ice to Roller!

Here nor there I wanted to come on to this board and tell you how thankful I am to the staff at Torhs for the way they treated my kids...Losing 8-0 in their first game was a tough way for the kids to be introduced to roller hockey but Tony went out of his way to come into the room and give the kids a pep talk and also did the same on the P.A. system after they lost in the AA finals 10-2.

Because of his thoughtfulness my kids left New Jersey with their heads held high, and a new appreciation for this great sport.

Were trying to build this sport in New England by having ice players try our sport. One of the biggest challanges is to convice the parents of our ice players in New England to give roller a chance. After this past weekend I have 10 sets of parents who left the tourney with a new appreciation for roller hockey. Everyone of the kids and parents said it was one of the best hockey weekends they have EVER experianced. They also can't wait to get home and tell every parent they know about how great this past weekend was.

I would like to publicly thank Tony and Lori and all the staff at Torhs as well as Chris Goshia and the entire staff at the Tab Ramos Sports Center for a very special weekend.

I would also like to thank all my kids who even in defeat had the time of their lives...

Regards,

Michael Hunt

Rink Rat

P.S. Special thanks as well to Pedro Cancel for his thoughtfulness and pep talk as well, the kids really appreciated it, thanks buddy!!!!!

[Eazy_b97 1]

I'm happy your son has a place to play. It's nice to see the sport picking up some added steam. Around here it's always been considered bush league, but I recently introduced approx. 10 new players to the sport and they are all having some of the best experiences of their lives. They've already asked me to run a team from July-Sept (Roller --> Ice gap), but I can't because there isn't a league. It's really something every ice hockey player, or person interested in the sport, should get to experience, so they can judge for themselves whether its a good fit for their style and personality. Again congrats on your son getting a team and its great you recieved such a warm welcome.