Is inline skating dying in America?

[Rick 0]

I just read an interesting artical from todays paper about inline/roller skating. I live just north of Muncie, Indiana but our newspaper covers a lot of stuff out of Indianapolis and in this mornings paper there was an article about a roller derby team in Indy. The article said that the number of inline skaters has dropped by 90 percent since 1996 (in the U.S.)and that quad roller skating is now picking up in popularity for the first time in several years. I knew this had to be somewhat true but I didn't realize to what extent. When I played inline hockey in the early and mid 90's it seemed like everyone was playing to one degree or another. I could drive into Muncie any evening of the week or just about anytime on the weekend and find a pickup game in one of the huge blacktop parking lots at Ball State University. Kids and adults of all ages were playing and inline and roller hockey gear was in all of the stores. It was a pretty cool time. Now I have to drive over an hour to a small town in Ohio to play once a week and none of the stores around here have any hockey gear at all. What the heck is going on? Roller hockey is a great sport. One of the rinks in Indy that used to sell a bunch or roller hockey gear 10-15 years ago went totally ice and when I asked the guy that runs the shop who in the Indy area sells roller hockey gear and where guys there play he told me that no one sells roller gear anymore and everyone that used to play roller either dropped out completely or switched to ice. I just don't get it.

What do you guys think? What happened?

Rick Henry

[Thockey17 1]

It seems to me that Roller Hockey is starting to grow.....again.

[--notorious 0]

I never liked roller, but wasnt rollerblading a huge fad in the 90's?

[G60 0]

yes. it can be argued that inline skating has been dead for quite some time.

it was a HUGE fad in the 90's not only inline hockey, but agressive inline skating, and fitness inline skating.

it was an awful fad, getting so hugely popular, and like all awful fads, eventually had to die.

there will always be a following, in certain climates, and i can imagine it will see some growth where i live, seeing as the only ice rink within 120 miles is shutting down, so the local roller rink may see some increased memberships in their league.

[Rick 0]

Yeah, it's kind of funny how inline/roller hockey just kind of died where I live because you have to drive an hour south to Fishers (Indianapolis) or an hour north to Fort Wayne to find an ice rink so inline would be the natural choice. It's also kind of funny how the club I am playing with in Ohio has something like 300 kids and 30 or more adults playing inline hockey in a town about 1/4 the size of Muncie.

Rick Henry

[TheSnake22 0]

I think it is very reasonable that the amount of inline skaters has gone down 90 percent, but the amount of people playing inline hockey, at least in organized form, has definitely not gone down anywhere near that far, and if it did recede, it is now much higher than it has ever been in the past. High School and Middle School inline leagues were non-existent in the 90's. Now there's tons of them, plus Torhs, Narch, State Wars, 2hot4ice... PIHA, USARS, USA inline... Fitness skating or inline skating for the casual person may be dead, but inline hockey is growing in a lot of places across the country...

One big problem though may come though because of like it was said, there aren't those kids playing out on tennis courts and in parking lots... the grassroots of inline hockey isn't what it used to be, but the organization is infinitely better along with the level of competition... hard to say if the lack of this grassroots development will hurt the sport in the long run... but if global warming keeps up, there wont be too many kids skating in backyard rinks or on ponds either lol...

[cj190 0]

Personally, I dont see much connection between inline recreational skating and roller hockey. Just like there is not much connection between recreational ice skating and ice hockey.

[G60 0]

yeah, even though inline hockey isn't as popular as it was during it's peak, i don't think it took the huge hit in unpopularity that recreational or agressive inline skating did.

[stevoc 0]

With all the new people I see joining at the start of the last four seasons (years worth) there's no way RH is dying in my area. I even see lots of inline skaters out on the path that follows the coast here on nice days. So, inline skating/roller hockey dying....I'm not so sure.

[Datsyukiandeek 0]

Me and about ten other guys would kill for an indoor rink near my area. It'll never happen, until I actually build one(Lifes goal #4). What we do have is an outdoor rink with full boards and nets. It was put up during "The rage" when you could watch inline hockey on ESPN and roller hockey actually had some respect. Nowadays roller hockey is a joke, I don't understand why. Its more economically friendly then ice and can be played on many different surfaces.

The only thing I worry about is the city getting rid of the rink in favor of something else. Its been up for a decade and they really don't get any revenue from it. They provide free lighting and the nets magically repair themselves every year.

Every year theres a strong group of 20-30 players that get together on a weekly basis but its not "popular". Although something weird happened a couple weeks ago, the Red Bull car pulled up and gave everyone free Red Bull at 9 oclock at night when it was freezing cold out. I have no idea how they found out about our game, no one outside of the small group really knows about them.

[BrunoZ 0]

Same here, in France, recreational inline skating is declining (good thing btw, there were so many dangerous suckers in the streets back in, say, '99-'02), but roller hockey has never been stronger, and is picking up more and more (less beginners, but a lot more intermediate and advanced players).

Actually, we don't have that many ice rinks here, but a lot of indoor courts that can be quickly converted in rh rinks. Also, ice hockey is really expensive down here, so rh is an interesting alternative for kids and students.

[EndGame 0]

I dunno. The rink where I play has more teams than ever before.

[mattzilla 0]

where i live ( victoria, bc ) roller hockey is just starting to boom.

there used to be a spring league, which would have about 7 divisions ( in the adult league ) and about 6-7 teams per division.

but now they built an all year around indoor facility ( owned by gerry st cyr ) and its starting to catch on all year around too and with each season in the new arena, more and more players are playing roller hockey all year around and not playing ice at all.

its a pretty nice rink too. sport court. sports bar, etc. i think in the long run, its gonna help roller grow here by leaps and bounds.

check it out www.eagleridgerollerhockey.com

[All Torhs Team 0]

Maybe that its just ice hockey is growing faster then roller hockey. And isnt ice hockey one of the least popular sports, which would make it seem like roller hockey is hardly moving at all.

But I think its growing more then dying.

[sdcopp 1]

Maybe that its just ice hockey is growing faster then roller hockey. And isnt ice hockey one of the least popular sports, which would make it seem like roller hockey is hardly moving at all.

But I think its growing more then dying.

I think it all depends on where you live. Roller is growing here with ice stagnating, but I attribute that to having PIHA and two outdoors inline rinks here while we just lost a lousy but convenient ice rink.

[G60 0]

yeah, it really depends on your location.

i'm in California, once the mecca of all types of inline skating, nowhere else on earth was inline skating as huge as it was here, so in my eyes, it of course is on life support, but i guess compared to other areas, we're actually thriving.

ice hockey, however is all but dead here :(

[Archangel#16 1]

Like G60, I too live in California and roller is starting to kinda die out. I know alot of people that made the switch to ice so yeah, I would have to say inline is on the decline.

[stevoc 0]

Like G60, I too live in California and roller is starting to kinda die out. I know alot of people that made the switch to ice so yeah, I would have to say inline is on the decline.

yeah, it really depends on your location.

i'm in California, once the mecca of all types of inline skating, nowhere else on earth was inline skating as huge as it was here, so in my eyes, it of course is on life support, but i guess compared to other areas, we're actually thriving.

ice hockey, however is all but dead here.

Where in CA are you guys? On the central coast, it seems to be growing.

[G60 0]

i'm in the central valley, near Fresno.

Fresno's ice rink is more than likely shutting down at the end of the ECHL season, so i'm sure a few will convert to inline hockey, since there is a pretty healthy inline league nearby as well. easier to drive 20 miles to an inline rink instead of 120 to the next nearest ice rink.

[KYHockey3 0]

inline hockey was huge here in ky about 7 years ago. it was a huge craze. we had tond of travel team, tourneys and stuff. eventually the roller hockey fad died down. about 2 years ago the rink had trouble getting enough kids for 3 divisons.: highschool, middle school, and elementarey school.

only 4 people signed up for high, so they combined us into middle. so there was only 2 leagues, elementary and middle, with 3 teams each.

the facility owners randomly one day decided to kick us out, so ever since then, roller hockey has been dead here.

i wish it would come back!!

jam skating or quad skating is decent in size around here. there is a huge facility thats about to open, but they will not offer roller hockey

[philatangy 0]

I would say that roller hockey at least in my area is dying too...We have had several roller rinks die or convert to ice in the LA Area recently. Bummer.

[Sprungster 5]

I would say that roller hockey at least in my area is dying too...We have had several roller rinks die or convert to ice in the LA Area recently. Bummer.

I know that rinks are closing in SoCal, but the overall feeling I got from the Lets Play Hockey Show in Vegas was that the roller industry is getting healthier, but in new parts of the world. More into Canada and Europe and different areas of the US.

Maybe many of the new areas and rinks are more aware of what it takes to make a go of it, with better programs, etc. Lower rent than the SoCal area too. LA is notorious for starting things up big and jumping in blind assuming everything is like the SoCal housing industry. How could anybody not get rich instantly even if you've never been in a hockey rink in your life???? There are ways out there for everybody to get poor. Seems like a lot of SoCal guys found hockey rinks.

But the companies are having good sales, and old and new companies are looking at roller hockey again, or for the first time, in quite a while. Meanwhile there's still lots of national champs out of SoCal and lots of roller/ice crossover at a high level.

[cj190 0]

Boy in my area it keeps growing. Just opened an amazing 3 rink facility and had nearly 50 high school teams enter.