Ice vs Roller hockey players

[sharks12 0]

I say that ice ice harder just by the contact end of it. Unless your playing full contact roller, ice is much more difficult.

[ean 0]

Ice...without a doubt. On ice you play hard 2 ways, on roller....just one.

[gxc999 7]

Ice...without a doubt. On ice you play hard 2 ways, on roller....just one.

Not true. Good players play both ways, regardless of what surface. This is

just stereotypical thinking. The reason the score is 8-7 is because it's 4 on 4 in a smaller space, not because nobody plays defense. Assuming inline players don't play defense is sheer idiocy.

[raygunpk 0]

I say that ice ice harder just by the contact end of it. Unless your playing full contact roller, ice is much more difficult.

Very true. Just grinding for 15 seconds at a corner drains the hell out of me. Kinda makes you think how long you would last in an MMA match due to pure fatigue.

[wc19 1]

ice hands down due skating your ass off every shift. roller hockey is more of a control type of game where not everybody has to go all out I think.

[gxc999 7]

ice hands down due skating your ass off every shift. roller hockey is more of a control type of game where not everybody has to go all out I think.

Ok, I agree to an extent. But overall, it's probably very close. Playing a 4 minute shift where you skate hard 40 seconds vs a 50 second shift where you skate hard 45 seconds...

[ean 0]

Ice...without a doubt. On ice you play hard 2 ways, on roller....just one.

Not true. Good players play both ways, regardless of what surface. This is

just stereotypical thinking. The reason the score is 8-7 is because it's 4 on 4 in a smaller space, not because nobody plays defense. Assuming inline players don't play defense is sheer idiocy.

No...it's actually pretty accurate.

[nexusrage21 1]

Ice...without a doubt. On ice you play hard 2 ways, on roller....just one.

Not true. Good players play both ways, regardless of what surface. This is

just stereotypical thinking. The reason the score is 8-7 is because it's 4 on 4 in a smaller space, not because nobody plays defense. Assuming inline players don't play defense is sheer idiocy.

No...it's actually pretty accurate.

Yeah, on my Inline team when the puck comes back in our zone, we all sit down and wait for our goalie to get control, then when he gets it, one person will skate back to get it from him while the rest of us all have tea.

[top 0]

I've played say 2-3 yrs competitive roller hockey, and over 15 yrs of top notch ice hockey. I usually play roller hockey in the summer time to stay in a hockey shape. And i have to say that no matter how hard I try when I play roller, ice hockey is still way tougher and you need to be in way better shape.

[xaero604 0]

I honestly feel that skating on inline skates is much easier. How many people , like me who have made the switch from roller to ice, recall how ridiculously slippery it was the first time they skated on ice? That fact alone, in my opinion, is enough to prove that skating on ice requires that much more control in your lower body because you can get away with so much in inline skates.

Let's take stopping for instance. The mechanics are totally different between ice and roller. You try to stop the same way you do in inlines, and you'll just turn sharply and maybe fall on your ass in ice. If you stop the same way you do in ice, you'll break your front ankle in inlines. It's just not the same. It takes much more control to stop in ice than it does in roller. Just the friggin' burn on the quads after a full speed stop is enough to make you want to work on reading the play better like you would in roller. I'll concede that roller hockey breeds players with more hockey sense since it's harder to recover from mistakes like overskating the puck.

[15yearsofhistory 0]

Ice...without a doubt. On ice you play hard 2 ways, on roller....just one.

Not true. Good players play both ways, regardless of what surface. This is

just stereotypical thinking. The reason the score is 8-7 is because it's 4 on 4 in a smaller space, not because nobody plays defense. Assuming inline players don't play defense is sheer idiocy.

No...it's actually pretty accurate.

Yeah, on my Inline team when the puck comes back in our zone, we all sit down and wait for our goalie to get control, then when he gets it, one person will skate back to get it from him while the rest of us all have tea.

I agree with gxc, inline players play both ways. Play a game against me and I will shut you down defensively because that's my territoty, not your's. On the other side of the spectrum I've been known to skate up into the play and try to make something happen. Granted I have to backcheck my ass off to get back in the D position, I do it.

[thorpedo26 0]

i gotta say ice by far imo. getting hit, throwing hits, ice is more work to skate on, stoping and taking off as fast as you can. i can play roller for hours and be much less tired than even 30 min of scrimmage on ice

[TheBert 0]

The heat that comes with playing roller. It's like being in the body of a 50 year old menopausal woman.

[AWE46M3 0]

The heat that comes with playing roller. It's like being in the body of a 50 year old menopausal woman.

That's pretty bold... And odd. I don't really care to know how/why you can make that comparison but whatever floats your boat I guess... haha

There is lots of good discussion here but I think some of the caveats like "roller players dont be play" or what have you dont add much to the topic and are a bit ludicrous. I've seen, and played with, many ice players whose idea of defense is backing checking until the neutral zone (sometimes) then straddling their own blueline waiting for that breakaway pass. Conversely, I've known roller players who played hard on both sides of the rink.

[TheBert 0]

It was more just an off thread topic comment than a comparison.

[AWE46M3 0]

^^^ Sorry, I was just being a little sarcastic with my reply. Maybe I should thrown in a :P smiley or something to avoid confusion... haha

[cougarscaptain87 12]

as being a roller player for more than 16 years and ice in between either way i feel like i wanna die after. thats not saying thaty im out of shape or anything (which im not) but there are different views. to who ever thinks that you cant stop the same way on inline skates as you can on ice needs to go to a high level league or tourney game and think otherwise. thats how i became good and better at stopping on inlines was because of ice. full speed to stopping on a dime. yea ice beats the absoulte crap out of you but if you play a full contact roller tournament theres something to be said. ice you can hit the ground and slide, inline you stop dead. regard less of rink size or 5 vs 4 there both a pretty even draw. but in the end for me atleast a HIGH end inline game i will take any day over and ice game. 4 top notch guys doing nothing but breaking deep and back checking your ass off to protect your goalie is alot harder in the summer heat than in a cool ice house.

in my book roller wins!

[Smitty34 0]

I haven't played ice, but I have to think that if you're skating hard for a full 45 seconds while getting checked into the boards, it would take quite a deal of endurance.

I've been playing roller hockey for five years. I play D1 high school and I'm looking to join a travel team in September. The shifts are definitely longer (around 1 and a half to two minutes), and the benches are shorter, so that is a factor. While the game is slower than ice, you are still skating hard, back checking, digging the puck out of the corner, getting back on D after pinching, etc., so it is still a test of endurance.

[Ultimus 0]

I play roller like I used to play ice. All out... I will try and keep my shifts under a minute. I grind in roller, people don't like to play against me, goalies mostly ;-) Its non checking but their is contact. With that being said, stopping and starting in ice is tougher. Roller can be just as grueling as ice though just depends on your style.

However, this last game we played with no subs so I wasn't all out at all times and conserved my energy....

[gxc999 7]

I'm always surprised when people say Ice is much harder than inline skating. It felt more natural and simpler to me instantly. I had only ever ice skated once before, then within 5-6 weeks of once per week ice skating, I was working on backwards crossovers. The one part of Ice that may require more conditioning is that you're physically skating further on a bigger surface. Then again, playing a game of inline where your team has 1 or 2 subs and you're playing 11 or 12 minutes out of 15 per period is extremely demanding too. I basically find it to be about even, although I think ice beats up my knees, shoulders and ankles more and bothers my back less. Maybe that's just technique related.

[WhiskeyTango19 0]

I had been playing a lot of both ice and inline in the recent past, and I hope I can shed a little light on this discussion. Here is my personal opinion:

Ice hockey demands a lot of explosive muscles. You skate (in men's league anyway) from 1 to 3 minutes a shift. How hard you skate depends on what kind of player you are. I will use myself as an example. I skate as hard as I can, lots of starts and stops. It is very demanding, but then you sit for a number of minutes and rest your muscles and catch your breath before going back out there and doing it all over again.

Inline hockey, as a general rule, uses less players per team. Your shift could be anywhere from 2 minutes to the entire game. There are much less starts and stops, and much more coasting. While you are out coasting around, you will undoubtedly have to turn on the jets once in a while. (hopefully during a backcheck :P ) Although you still need to hit top speeds almost as much, you are skating MUCH longer shifts, and with fewer chances to catch your breath.

Long story short: You can't compare Ice vs. Inline. Just as in the two styles of play: as many similarities as there are between the two, there are just as many differences.

[gxc999 7]

i gotta say ice by far imo. getting hit, throwing hits, ice is more work to skate on, stoping and taking off as fast as you can. i can play roller for hours and be much less tired than even 30 min of scrimmage on ice

You have to compare even levels of play. If you're comparing full contact B divisions in each, they're going to be about equally fatiguing but ice might be tougher overall. Plus, the rink I play roller at is a freaking steambath, the ice facility feels sooo much cooler. And yeh, I think ice might require a bit more lower body control, but overall, they're very hard to compare and approximately even in the end. Ice and inline skating are different but not, in my opinion, night and day. The biggest difference is just the edges, which I'm working on now...