Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 9, 1990 TAG: 9007090054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN SMALLWOOD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Probably not.
That's not surprising; the problem for roller hockey always has been anonymity.
The sport's origin can be traced back more than a century, and it will be a demonstration sport at the 1992 Olympics in Madrid, Spain. But roller hockey was one of the most inconspicuous of the 29 sports at the Virginia CorEast State Games held in the Roanoke Valley during the past four days.
"Basically, our sport is unknown to people around here," said Scott Moyers, a former two-time national speed skating champion who coached the Roanoke teams in the State Games. "It's hard to get kids into a sport when no one's heard of it. Every time people hear of a roller skating sport they think it's roller derby. It's starting to grow, but it's going to take time."
Roller hockey is exactly what the name implies: hockey played on roller skates.
According to The Associated Press' Sports Almanac, the game began in the late 1800s in the streets of Canada.
Canadian children made hockey sticks out of branches and pucks from frozen horse manure and played a street version of ice hockey on their roller skates.
"The rules are basically the same as ice hockey," said Randy Bell, the sport's coordinator for the State Games. "There are some differences, mainly in that there is no body checking. It's a non-contact, finesse sport."
The game is played either with a rubber ball or a plastic puck. There are three variations of the game, puck hockey, soft ball hockey and hard ball hockey.
Each team has five players and a goalie. The players use a meter-long stick, which is slightly larger than a field-hockey stick. As in field hockey, players are not allowed to bring the stick higher than the waist when shooting.
Although it is not as popular in America as its cold-weather cousin, roller hockey has strong interest on the international level.
In European nations such as Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, England, Italy and Holland, organized hockey ball leagues have flourished for years. It also is a major sport in several South American nations.
"They've been playing it for a long time," said Bell, who will take three of his Harrisonburg teams to the national championships Aug. 30-Sept. 3 in Lewisville, Texas. "It's played in the Pan-American Games and at the National Sports Festival. It's already set up to be an Olympic demonstration sport at the 1992 Games."
Roller hockey is the first roller skating sport to gain Olympic acceptance.
"I would have thought 10 years ago that artistic skating would have been the first to get in," said Bell, who was 1980 national champion in artistic roller skating. "But the Olympic Committee has been frowning on letting in sports that depend on subjective judging. They also weren't going to put in a sport that the Europeans wouldn't be competitive in.
"The Europeans didn't care about roller hockey getting in because they're as good as we are and in some cases better."
The fact that International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch is a former hockey ball player in his native Spain didn't hurt.
One unusual aspect of the sport is that it is coed, making it one of the few Olympic sports in which men and women compete together.
"And there are some very good female hockey players, at all levels," Bell said.
At the international level, roller hockey is played with a hard ball and on a rink about the same size as in ice hockey.
"It's all speed and finesse at the elite level," said Bell, who has competed nationally in roller hockey. "You have to be able to skate to do well."
However, in the State Games tournament, held at the Star City Skating Center, the players used the soft ball and played in an area 70 feet long and 50 feet wide.
"The attraction of playing it on this court is that kids don't necessarily have to be great skaters to play," Bell said.
The State Games had roller hockey teams from Roanoke, Harrisonburg, Winchester and Virginia Beach in three divisions of competition.
"Hopefully, this area will start accepting hockey and skating in general," Moyers said. "But it's hard to get parents to get their kids involved in roller hockey as opposed to the traditional sports when nobody's heard of it."
by CNB