Roller hockey or Ice hockey

[Michael9 57]

i'll take ice its way to hot when you play roller

100 posts B)

[Squirrel 0]

I enjoy both, even though I'm better at ice hockey.

[MDE3 0]

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/h...anhock-all.html

An article from a remote site I read ....goes a long way to explain why inline hockey saw such popularity growth in the nineties. Unfortunately many of the same principles began to be applied to inline teams as well further stunting the growth of the sport to an extent.

Hockey needs to be taught as a learning pyramid...in any version, where the individual skills make up the foundation building blocks of the whole player...focussing too much on systematic play is stultifying to the growth of both the individual as well as to the game istelf....much of the problems we see in todays game stem from the complaints written of in this article...circa 1998 I believe.

[Gongshow11 1]

i think the nrhl i think it was called (with the montreal rodrunners) made roller hockey popular

[MDE3 0]

i think the nrhl i think it was called (with the montreal rodrunners) made roller hockey popular

Actually I think your meant the RHI....(Roller Hockey International)..with ESPN coverage. Thats the league the Roadrunners played in.

[#1STUD 0]

MDE3 could show me where that article talks about inline hockey. I cant seem to find it.

[A_Steeves12 0]

i played one season of roller and i liked it but i didnt like it as much as ice.

[jason37 2]

i think the nrhl i think it was called (with the montreal rodrunners) made roller hockey popular

Actually I think your meant the RHI....(Roller Hockey International)..with ESPN coverage. Thats the league the Roadrunners played in.

Roadrunners

RHI

Here are a couple sites....

[MDE3 0]

MDE3 could show me where that article talks about inline hockey. I cant seem to find it.

The article never mentions inline hockey..it just mentions how stulltified that ice hockey played in the 90's in Canada had become, with little focus on developing individual creativity, but more on defensive team play...ie geared to creating defensive system players suitable for the then current NHL philosophy of play, rather than developing offensive players with more exciting skills. The article compares the Canadian development system to the European development system, and then demonstrates the impact of this based on the offensive success of European players versus Canadian players...at the time.

Hence what I said about how that sort of philosophy helped inspire players to play the much more free wheeling game that inline was/is at the time...with more outlets for individual creativity..read "fun". I know for me that was much more appealing than what I saw in ice hockey.

However eventually even some of the inline game began to focus on "winning systems" of puck control and home run breakouts..creating the slower less exciting version of inline that many have complained about. This became known as "Mudcat Hockey" due to the fact that the St. Louis based Tour Team seemed to be the one who established this as a winning system in the Pro Tournament Divisions. Even at the 7 - 12 year old youth levels in the mid nineties, I recall so many local coaches directing all their efforts to getting the youngsters to focus on defensive positional play, and formalized breakout systems (inline)... At the same time I was spending all my efforts with the same kids on teaching them to be better skaters, and stick handlers, and better shooters, so that eventually when someone explained a "system" they had some skills with which to execute this.....These other coaches were trying to instill "systems play" in kids for whom the hockey stick was still a "third leg".

Youth is a time to build confidence in your personal skills....this is when the building blocks of the game are developed.....from my point of view..who cares about winning the games, eventually when the skills are there..the winning will come....focus on seeing the kids improve and let them know they are growing and improving as individuals.....let them feel good about themselves and their talents....once they feel good about themselves, it is much easier to get them to share with others ..in a creative way...read "team play". As they grow individually...the team grows with them.

I think this message has been heard and we are beginnig once again to see more creative players coming out of the Junior ranks in Canada and the US. Interesting ly, some of these players are dual players..playing serious levels of both versions of the game.

[forsberg91 0]

Ice hockey is alot better IMO. I like shooting around in the driveway but no inline for me.

[Kovy_Ribs_Fedo 3]

MDE3 could show me where that article talks about inline hockey. I cant seem to find it.

The article never mentions inline hockey..it just mentions how stulltified that ice hockey played in the 90's in Canada had become, with little focus on developing individual creativity, but more on defensive team play...ie geared to creating defensive system players suitable for the then current NHL philosophy of play, rather than developing offensive players with more exciting skills. The article compares the Canadian development system to the European development system, and then demonstrates the impact of this based on the offensive success of European players versus Canadian players...at the time.

Hence what I said about how that sort of philosophy helped inspire players to play the much more free wheeling game that inline was/is at the time...with more outlets for individual creativity..read "fun". I know for me that was much more appealing than what I saw in ice hockey.

However eventually even some of the inline game began to focus on "winning systems" of puck control and home run breakouts..creating the slower less exciting version of inline that many have complained about. This became known as "Mudcat Hockey" due to the fact that the St. Louis based Tour Team seemed to be the one who established this as a winning system in the Pro Tournament Divisions. Even at the 7 - 12 year old youth levels in the mid nineties, I recall so many local coaches directing all their efforts to getting the youngsters to focus on defensive positional play, and formalized breakout systems (inline)... At the same time I was spending all my efforts with the same kids on teaching them to be better skaters, and stick handlers, and better shooters, so that eventually when someone explained a "system" they had some skills with which to execute this.....These other coaches were trying to instill "systems play" in kids for whom the hockey stick was still a "third leg".

Youth is a time to build confidence in your personal skills....this is when the building blocks of the game are developed.....from my point of view..who cares about winning the games, eventually when the skills are there..the winning will come....focus on seeing the kids improve and let them know they are growing and improving as individuals.....let them feel good about themselves and their talents....once they feel good about themselves, it is much easier to get them to share with others ..in a creative way...read "team play". As they grow individually...the team grows with them.

I think this message has been heard and we are beginnig once again to see more creative players coming out of the Junior ranks in Canada and the US. Interesting ly, some of these players are dual players..playing serious levels of both versions of the game.

Oh men, I love what you say...Awesome MDE3...

You think exactly like me. It's completely stupid to make play children in a system when they have poor skills.

Develop your player for lot of years, and then if you want, make a system, and make your skills players play in the system.

Sorry for my english, I did my best.

[Fury of One 6]

I think I'm starting to like Ice a lot more. I played roller for a good portion of my 9 year hockey career (started at 18.) I just gotta work the legs more and become a better skater. Ice definitely helps the roller though.

[MDE3 0]

Let me just recount one CJ Yoder story from an inline Pro game at Narch Winternationals. For those of you who are the "uninitiated" in the "lofty" world of "Pro Inline Hockey", CJ Yoder was for a long time (and maybe still is) considered to be the greatest player in inline hockey..more or less the "Gretzky" of inline hockey.

The Tour Mudcats were breaking out of their own zone and CJ gets a "buddy pass" just shy of the centerline. Due to his reputation he was always being shadowed by at least one if not two players. Officially even the "Pro" versions of the inline game at this time were still "no check", but the calls were pretty loose.

CJ has to turn around to pick up the pass, so he is moving backwards up the rink as he takes it on his stick. One of his shadows, sees this and takes the opportunity to submarine CJ from behind...clips him right behind the knees. CJ does a full somersault in the air...as he is coming down and before he even lands on the rink, he somehow gets control of the puck on his stick, and slings a one handed pass to a breaking Jay Mazer..setting up a breakaway, which Jay finished.....One of the most incredible plays I have ever seen....in any version of the sport....

Only to say that I have seen some stuff in inline hockey(and more than once from CJ), I have never seen in ice...and I for one think those athletes deserve a lot more recognition than they get...if for nothing else than their pure athleticism. For those of you who love the pure hockey skills in the game, I think you will see more spectacular examples in the inline game than the ice game..when it's played at the peak levels...either because the rules of the game make it so much more open, and the opportunities for these kinds of plays happen with more frequency, or because there is more discrepancy in talent between the very best and the other elite players, than in ice hockey.

[DeI 18 0]

MDE3, where can I find a vid of that? Thats sounds pretty cool.

[MDE3 0]

It was the Narch Winternationals.....a Pro game between the Tour Mudcats and the ops were maybe Team Hyper...but not sure. If anyone has that it would be Narch.

Not sure if the video'd all the Pro games at that time.

I was there in person so it was not from a video that I saw this.

My son was lucky enough to be allowed to play open hockey quite a few times at age 14 with CJ and Jay Mazer the Yinglings, Ron Tracey, Mattie Denton etc...a bunch of the Mudcats... in their elite men's hockey sessions down in Harrisburg, so we saw some pretty amazing CJ moves first hand....he exposed a lot more of them when playing just for fun.

One time my son had him pinned against the boards..CJ facing the boards and my son had him tied up pretty well....I was on the other side of the glass from them. My son had his knee between CJ's legs and both hands on the stick shoving CJ face first into the glass with the puck tricking away up rink...C reached out with one hand and got the puck on the toe of his stick.....flipped it over his own head off the glass, spun out and walked in and scored....my son just looked at me through the glass and raised his hands, and shook his head.

One other time CJ was coming in alone against another young defenceman...he made so many great moves, the defenceman's legs crossed, his arms crossed, and he(the defenceman) just keeled over.....one of the funniest things I have seen in hockey