Inline hockey

Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport is a very fast-paced and free-flowing game and is considered a contact spot], but body checking is prohibited. There are five players including the goalkeeper from each team on the rink at a time, while teams normally consist of 16 players. There are professional leagues, one of which is the National Roller Hockey League (NRHL). While it is not a contact sport, there are exceptions, i.e. the NRHL involves fighting.

Unlike ice hockey, there are no blue lines or defensive zones in roller hockey. This means that, according to most rule codes, there are no offsides or icings that can occur during game play. This along with fewer players on the rink allows for faster gameplay. There are traditionally two 20-minute periods or four 10-minute periods with a stopped clock.

In the United States, the highest governing body for the sport is USA Roller Sports (USARS). USARS is credited with the development of the present-day rules and regulations that is used throughout multiple tournament series. They organize tournaments across the United States but they are not the only tournament provider. Some of the other independent tournament providers include the Amateur Athletic Union and North American Roller Championships. Internationally, inline hockey is represented by two different unions, the World Skate and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). Each organizes its own annual world championships.

History

The first recorded hardball roller hockey game was played in 1878 at the Denmark Rink in London, England. It was first known as "roller polo" due to the introduction of polo in 1876, skaters took polo to the rinks. The sport was introduced into the United States in 1882 with the formation of the National Roller Polo League in Dayton, Ohio, with teams in seven cities. In 1884, the Massachusetts Roller Polo league was operating with 14 teams. Organized roller skating sports developed as the popularity of roller skates increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Roller hockey teams were playing throughout Europe as early as 1901. Roller Hockey was played by the famous silent film stars, Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin, in the early 1900s. The first World Championships in roller hockey were held in 1936 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Some of the earliest video evidence of inline hockey is newsreel footage from the Giornale Luce taken in Vienna, Austria in 1938. The video shows players using inline skates with five metal wheels and a front wheel brake. Each team has four skaters plus a netminder. They are using ice hockey sticks, with taped blades, and the goals closely resemble ice hockey goals of the wire-mesh type common in Europe around that time. The game is being played with a ball on a rectangular outdoor court, which appears to be asphalt.

The exact same footage was used in a newsreel produced by British Pathé in 1938.

History in North America

In the United States, the USA Roller Sports (USARS) predecessor organization was the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association (RSROA). In 1940, the RSROA published a set of roller hockey rules drawn from a booklet by the National Hockey League (NHL) which was designed to grow interest in playing hockey on roller skates. However, because of the intervention of World War II, the organization of roller hockey tournaments did not receive significant development until after this war in the late 1940s. At first skating club interest was confined to the northern tier of the United States, including the bordering Canadian cities. Puck roller hockey's spread in popularity during that period was helped along by the attention of local commercial television, which was getting its start and in desperate need for events to fill air time. The increased interest in the sport led in 1959 to the selection of a National Puck Hockey Committee to formulate special rules for the performance of puck hockey in the variety of rink sizes available to roller skates. The American Roller Hockey Association (ARHA) was formed with Joe Spillman, a roller rink operator from San Antonio, Texas as its first Commissioner. Under Spillman's direction, the sport of hockey on roller skates grew rapidly throughout the United States.

During the 1960 RSROA National Roller Skating Championships held in Little Rock, Arkansas, exhibition games for ball and puck roller hockey were held. Following these Nationals, the first full competitive season officially began in North America for roller hockey. This, of course, had puck roller hockey entirely performed on quad skates, for at that time there were no inline skates available. State and regional competitions determined the teams that would move on to the North American Championships.

In 1962, at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, both ball and puck hockey were part of the North American Championships. The Arcadia Wildcats from Detroit, Michigan, defeated the Van Wert Chiefs 3–1, becoming the first puck hockey national champions on quad skates. Inline skates were not commercially available during that era.

On 1 September 1965, during their semi-annual board meeting, the RSROA installed puck hockey as an equal and separate division of roller hockey, which included ball hockey, a format most popular in Europe and South America. It was decided that both ball and puck hockey would compete under the same rules and award separate gold medal winners. Budd Van Roekel, RSROA president, was quoted in the January 1965 issue of Skate Magazine,

"We believe this move will spark further growth of our roller hockey program. While we recognize the popularity of the international ball-and-cane version of hockey, we also realize that thousands of potential United States and Canadian players are more familiar with the Canadian stick-and-puck type sport. We see no reason why the two versions of the sport cannot grow side by side." - Budd Van Roekel, Roller Skating Rink Operators Association president (RSROA), Skate Magazine (1965)

The 1966 North American Championships marked the return of puck hockey after a four-year hiatus. The final game was a nail biter and the crowd appreciated the fast pace and excitement of puck hockey. The final game was between the Canadians of Windsor, Ontario and the Wildcats of Detroit, Michigan, the defending champions from 1962. The score seesawed between the two teams and was finally decided in favor of the Canadians with a final score of 5 to 3. The win gave the Canadian team their only gold medal for the whole North American Championships. One Canadian team player was quoted in the 1966 Fall issue of Skate Magazine, "We simply had to win the (puck) hockey championships, otherwise our fathers wouldn’t allow us to return home." Another milestone occurred for puck roller hockey in 1977, when the North American Puck Hockey Championship was held in a venue away from ball hockey for the first time. The 1977 puck championships were staged in Houston, Texas to large crowds and a great amount of publicity, as fourteen newspapers and television stations covered the event. The year 1977 was also a milestone for women with this championship marking the debut of a women's hockey national championship.

Transition from quads to inline

The very first inline roller hockey team to earn a USA National Championship title did so at a USA Roller Sports (USARS) National Championship held in San Diego in July 1993. At the previous 1992 USARS National Championships, also staged in San Diego, the San Diego Hosers won the Senior Gold Division title wearing their customary quad roller skates. As of that time, the Hosers manager/coach Paul Chapey felt that while inline skates were obviously faster, the advantage was to quad skates because of their assumed greater maneuverability. Some teams and individual players at the 1992 Nationals had been equipped with inline skates, but perhaps had not yet mastered their new vehicles. During the ensuing year, Paul Chapey became an inline convert and the San Diego Hosers came back to the USAC/RS Nationals in 1993 entirely on inline skates and recaptured their national title. This significant event took place at least a year before all the other major roller inline hockey organizations were even in existence, including National Inline Hockey Association (NIHA), USA Hockey InLine, North American Roller Hockey Championships (NARCh) and American Inline Roller Hockey Series (AIRHS).

USA Roller Sports, under the auspices of Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS), established and hosted the first World Inline Roller Hockey Championships for men at the Odeum Arena in Villa Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) in 1995. USA Roller Sports established the first Inline Hockey World Championships for Juniors, again in Chicago in 1996, following the USA National Championships. The first World Inline Hockey Championships for Women occurred under sponsorship of USA Roller Sports in Rochester, New York in 2002. Since the introduction of these events, FIRS National Federations around the world have annually perpetuated inline world championships. USA (Ice) Hockey and International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) began their men's InLine Hockey World Championship in 1996, after the first such world championship by FIRS and has yet to organize a women's inline hockey world tournament or one for juniors.

History in Europe

SKF-Speedy, 1978

For training purposes especially for hockey players, inline skates were produced in small quantities by several companies which were in fact modified ice skates, one of them was the "Speedy" by SKF which was available also with hockey-wheels. This changed when mass-produced inline skates from the USA were available in the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s first leagues started.

Inline roller hockey was introduced to the World Games for the first time in 2005, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned event under the jurisdiction of the International World Games Association (IWGA), an affiliate of the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). The United States won the gold medal, with Canada taking the Silver and Switzerland the bronze medal. Inline roller hockey replaced rink hockey (ball and cane) on the World Games program for Duisburg, Germany at the 2005 quadrennial World Games. Rink roller hockey had been part of the World Games since its first organization in 1979 at Santa Clara, California, as have the other disciplines of roller sports.

During the General Assembly of the IWGA, which took place in Madrid on 14 May 2003, the IWGA unanimously agreed that inline roller hockey was the responsibility of FIRS and that this variant form of roller hockey would be included on the program of the 2005 World Games in place of the previous format. This same scenario had previously played out before the Pan American Sports Organization in 1999, when inline hockey made its first appearance at the Pan American Games in Canada, and repeated again four years later in the Dominican Republic. PASO extends continued recognition of the inline hockey under the jurisdiction of FIRS.

Chief differences from ice hockey

Inline-Hockey Puck

Although inline hockey appears to simply be ice hockey on inline skates, this singular difference reflects throughout the rest of the game, resulting in important differences between the two sports.

Inline hockey is typically played at room temperature on a surface that, rather than being made from (frozen) water, is kept dry to protect the bearings in the skate wheels. Several surface materials are used, including plastic tiles (sometimes known as sport-court flooring), wood, and sealed concrete; in general, surfaces try to balance the ability of wheels to grip against the ability of the puck to slide freely. None of these surfaces, however, is as smooth as ice; as a result, the puck is made of a much lighter plastic material, and rests on small nylon or poly-plastic nubs to reduce friction with the rink surface.

Besides these equipment differences, inline hockey uses less physical contact in comparison to ice hockey. Most leagues punish fighting harshly, and body checking is usually ruled a penalty. Inline hockey leagues generally require players to wear full face masks, but otherwise, players tend to wear lighter clothes and less protective padding.

Important differences in game rules also exist. Each inline hockey team fields only four skaters and one goaltender (5 players) rather than ice hockey's five skaters and one goaltender (six players). Many leagues do not stop play for icing. Offside rules are generally looser as well; originally, a few leagues would call offside only on the center line, presently, every rule book omits the rule entirely.

Equipment

Most protective equipment is similar to that used in ice hockey

Inline hockey is a contact sport. Although body checks are usually not allowed, injuries can still be a common occurrence. Protective equipment is highly recommended and is enforced in all competitive situations. This usually includes a helmet (cage worn if certain age), elbow pads, protective gloves, athletic cup, shin pads, and skates at the very least. In addition, goaltenders use different gear, (optionally) a neck guard, chest/arm protector, blocker, catch glove, and leg pads.

Skates

Good skates are stiffer and lighter and also have better bearings. Inline hockey-skates are similar to icehockey-skates, the main difference between ice and inline is the chassis and the wheels. Hockey equipment manufacturers such as Bauer and CCM offer parallel models of ice skates, but there are also inline hockey brands, including Mission, Tour and Labeda.

Most inline hockey skates had have a chassis with 4 identical wheels on each boot in 72, 76 or 80 mm diameter, or the "Hi-Lo" configuration of two low wheels in front and two higher rear, this was patented on 12 July 1996 by Jon G Wong in the US and marketed by Mission. There is also a chassis with a "Tri-Di" option, which allows three wheel sizes to be mounted on a chassis, in the configuration 80-76-76-72 mm. Inline Hockey wheels are much softer than road wheels, and therefore have more abrasion. The softest are used for soft surfaces like gym floors or interlocking plastic tiles, harder are used for surfaces such as asphalt.

The rink

The area where Inline hockey is played in known as a "rink". It consists of a playing surface that is surrounded by a boundary (commonly referred to as "dasher boards"), that is designed to separate the players from the spectators as well as to keep the puck in play. The playing surface is made of sport tile, wood, asphalt or cement and marked with special lines that help the referees officiate the game according to the official rules.

The recommended size of the rink can vary between 40m and 60m in length and 20m and 30m in width. In Germany the old standard was 40m x 20m which changed to 50m x 25m but also the ice hockey standard of 61m x 30.5m (200×100 ft) is used.

Goal cages

One of the most fundamental differences between the IIHF and World Skate-sanctioned versions of inline hockey lies within the dimensions of the net. The IIHF simply retains the use of ice hockey nets. However the World Skate rulebook substitutes the traditional ice hockey cage for a lower and narrower model patterned after the one used in rink hockey, the World Skates' flagship sport, however most World Skate leagues in the United States and Canada opt for the more popular and common ice hockey nets.

Game

An international match between Latvia and Czech Republic

While the general characteristics of the game are the same wherever it is played, the exact rules depend on the particular code of play being used. The most important code is that of the Comité International Roller In-Line Hockey (CIRILH), an organization and discipline of the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports

Inline hockey is played on an 'inline hockey rink. During normal play, there are five players per side on the floor at any time, one of them being the goaltender, each of whom is on inline hockey skates. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard plastic disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net, which is placed at the opposite end of the rink. The players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade that is commonly curved at one end.

Players may also redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, subject to certain restrictions. Players may not hold the puck in their hand and are prohibited from using their hands to pass the puck to their teammates, unless they are in the defensive zone. Players are also prohibited from kicking the puck into the opponent's goal, though unintentional redirections off the skate are permitted. Players may not intentionally bat the puck into the net with their hands.

The four players other than the goaltender are typically divided into two forwards and two defencemen. The forward positions consist of a center and a winger. The defencemen usually stay together as a pair generally divided between left and right. A substitution of an entire unit at once is called a line change. Teams typically employ alternate sets of forward lines and defensive pairings when shorthanded or on a power play. Substitutions are permitted at any time during the course of the game, although during a stoppage of play the home team is permitted the final change. When players are substituted during play, it is called changing on the fly.

The boards surrounding the floor help keep the puck in play and they can also be used as tools to play the puck. Players are not permitted to "bodycheck" opponents into the boards as a means of stopping progress. The referees and the outsides of the goal are "in play" and do not cause a stoppage of the game when the puck or players are influenced (by either bouncing or colliding) into them. Play can be stopped if the goal is knocked out of position. Play often proceeds for minutes without interruption. When play is stopped, it is restarted with a faceoff. Two players "face" each other and an official drops the puck to the floor, where the two players attempt to gain control of the puck. Markings on the floor indicate the locations for the "faceoff" and guide the positioning of players.

There is one major rule of play in inline hockey that limit the movement of the puck: the puck going out of play. The puck goes "out of play" whenever it goes past the perimeter of the rink (Onto the player benches, over the "glass," or onto the protective netting above the glass) and a stoppage of play is called by the officials using whistles. It also does not matter if the puck comes back onto the playing surface from those areas as the puck is considered dead once it leaves the perimeter of the rink.

Under FIRS rules, each team may carry a maximum of 14 players and two goaltenders on their roster. The players are usually divided into three lines of two forwards, two pairs of defenceman, and two extra skaters.

See also

• Major League Roller Hockey
• Roller Hockey International
• IIHF InLine Hockey World Championship