Old guy finds fun and friends in new league......

[Rick 0]

Guys, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had joined a roller hockey league/club in Ohio. Well I went over again on Saturday and played with the "Red Team" at the Celina, Ohio (Mercer County Fair Grounds) and had a blast. I'm 40 years old and I thought any chance of finding a group of guys anywhere near my age within driving distance of my home was a lost cause but then I found a web page for Wings and Wheels. Its a Christian based roller hockey league in Celina, Ohio a little over an hours drive from my home in Indiana. After talking to one of the league organizers by telephone he invited me and my sons to come over and check out what they are doing in Celina. We drove over three weeks ago and watched several games. The games start early in the morning with the little kids teams and go all day long through high school age teams and then the last two games of the day are all adults. The league is a no contact league played in a large pole barn type building with a super smooth concrete floor, dasher boards and refs. The organizers have told me that they started the league 6 years ago as an outreach to the youth in the area with the idea of giving the kids a chance to learn and play hockey without violence and to help teach Christian values. And from what I see they have done a top notch job. It turns out it was too late in the year to get my boys involved this season but they plan to play next year. They have something like 300 kids of all ages involved in the program. The season runs from December through February because that seems to be the only time of year they can reserve the building. As for me the older guys accepted me with open arms and were more than willing to allow me to play a game or two with them. All the guys are really good people and most are pretty good hockey players. If you live within driving distance of Celina, Ohio check them out some Saturday or check out the Wings and Wheels web site. Pretty cool stuff.

Rick Henry

[gman 0]

That sounds awesome. Congratulations on finding such a large and welcoming group. We should all be so lucky.

[Rick 0]

Thanks, Yeah its been pretty cool. At this point in my life I don't have any interest in contact hockey and the last thing I would want is to get in the middle of a fight when I'm just trying to have some fun and get some exercise playing a game I love. I'm a police officer and one of the big reasons I gave up the ice hockey league I was involved in several years ago was because we had guys that wanted to land a big check on someone and we had a couple of guys that got into fights and it was also supposed to be a no contact league. I was never involved in the fights and one of my police buddies who also played and I always had to calm things down and keep the peace, so to speak. I even had an incident where some younger guy who thought he was some kind of Bob Probert would even try to start something with me or my buddy. You don't know how tempting it was to just knock the taste out of his mouth and he had no idea how bad he would have lost especially if my friend would have lost his cool and took hold of him. A friend of mine tells his martial arts students " You can't always tell how bad someone could hurt you just by looking at them". This I have found is very much true. I told my wife then that I didn't want to deal with that crap so I walked away from the league and me and my buddy never went back. As a police officer you are held to a higher standard of conduct and no police chief wants one of his guys involved in that kind of thing. It's bad for everyone. I have been involved in Martial Arts on and off since I was 10 years old and a group of us (police officers) train in ground fighting, defensive tactics and mixed martial arts but I wasn't about to get into a hockey fight and lose my job and get involved in a civil or criminal law suit because some other guy was trying to get discovered as the next NHL goon. If you are an officer and you thump someone you better be able to justify it as self defense and the other guy better go to jail or your career is over. The no contact, fun Christian league is right up my alley.

Rick Henry

[gman 0]

I sympathize with your self defense issue. Lost of guys (kids) want to train and be really tough and try themselves out on the street. But you really cannot judge a book by its cover. Even worse, anyone who has had any "martial" training is in for even more trouble. One of the first things the lawyer is going to ask is "have you ever had any martial arts training". You say "well I messed around a little as a kid but nothing serious", and all of a sudden you are Bruce Lee or Chuck Liddel. At that point you had better have incident witnesses and character witnesses and a lot of luck and a sympathetic jury.

Heaven help you if you use a firearm and have gone to front-site, Thunder Ranch, or any other academy and/or shoot IDPA or any other organized events. Watch out if you are a life member of the NRA or of a gun/hunting club. I can only imagine what you police officers have to consider.

Stick with no-contact beer leagues...

[G60 0]

sounds fun, i just joined a RH league here with 4 of my friends, everybody is really cool and seemed really excited about 5 new players to get to know.

there's one jerkoff though, and sadly i'm on the same team as him. #69, introduced himself to the team as 'wayne gretzky' when another teammate remarked he'd have to take short shifts because he's got two broken ribs, good ol' #69 remarked he'd have to do the same because his 'wang is so huge and it weighs him down'. and of course, he scored a whopping 4 points all of last season :(

[Datsyukiandeek 0]

Too bad its not closer. I live in Bowling Green Ohio, its about an hour away from Celina. I basically play on the same thing right now, smooth concrete full boards, no refs and its completely outdoors We get some pretty good games going though.

If its possible could you snap a couple pics and post them up next time you go? The website doesn't really show the playing surface. I may check it out some weekend.

Thanks

[hockeysc23 0]

Awesome that you found a league that supports the type of play you are looking for. I just joined a new roller league since I finally healed my last knee injury after college. Unfortunately we still have those guys that dont understand its a rec league and are more focused on getting into fights then playing hockey.

Hope you and your kids enjoy the league come next year.

[Rick 0]

Hey to the guy that lives in Bowling Green I'm an hour away also, in the other direction. I live about 10 miles north of Muncie, Indiana so the drive is like an hour and 15 minutes. In total distance it's probably like 55 miles or so but there just isn't a good, direct way to get to Celina from where I live. You might check it out sometime on a Saturday if you are bored or just want to make a short road trip. I will try to get some pics but I don't know that I will make it over again before the season ends.

Rick Henry