Leveling the playing field: should the sport of inline hockey be relegated to costly, private skate rinks?

Twelve-year-old Johnny Smith gets out of the car and slings his giant equipment bag over his shoulder. As he walks into the private inline hockey rink, he resembles a cartoon character, lugging a load precariously too big for his body to handle. Johnny has been playing in inline hockey leagues for five years. Today, he has an opportunity to practice his stick-handling ability. He goes to the counter to pay the $7 admission fee. He hits the dressing room, gets into gear and skates out onto the floor.

There are hundreds of thousands of Johnny Smiths all over the country replaying this scenario every day because park and recreation departments fail to meet the demand of this neglected recreational activity. According to Gary DelVecchio, director of USA Inline Hockey, a non-profit association dedicated to advancing ice and inline hockey as a recreational activity, there are more private inline hockey rinks than public that are being" used by the leagues. As a result, kids interested in playing usually pay $275 to join a team to play 20 games, each lasting 60 minutes. They also are asked to pay a $60 uniform fee, in addition to about $1,200 of equipment such as kneepads, shin guards, hockey sticks and pucks, that the private rink does not provide.

This type of overhead to play a sport is not consistent with other sports like basketball. We may look aghast at the price of some top-end basketball shoes, but hey, if Johnny Smith plays basketball, he just goes down to the local recreation center gym and shoots baskets--for free. In fact, if Johnny plays soccer, basketball, football, softball, baseball, volleyball, tennis, or one of a dozen other minor sports, our community, through local parks and recreation departments, generally provides a place for youth to play.

But not inline hockey.

The El Paso Parks and Recreation Department in Texas decided to do things somewhat differently. The program began in October 1995, in one of 13 city-operated gymnasiums and also one of the oldest centers in the city, the Nations-Tobin Recreation Center. The program paired together a temporary rink with a hardwood surface, 2-foot plywood arena walls and a regular hockey ball. The program was given a weekend timeslot and had to give preference to the basketball and soccer players.

But the spartan amenities did not deter kids from participating. Soon, the team grew in size and the number of practices, eventually outgrowing the weekend slot. By the summer of 1997, Charlie Nutter, then director of El Paso Parks and Recreation, together with Charles Taylor, superintendent of centers, made a decision, "Kids that play reline hockey as their sport, deserve a quality place to play." And this "place to play" needed to be indoors, out of El Paso's 100-degree heat, with first-rate rink equipment and furnishings, for both quality and safety. With the help of city hall administrative assistant David Ochoa, an inline hockey rink was tacked onto a bond issue to be voted in May 2000. The bond election did pass, and the rink was on its way to commencement.

In order to accomplish the goal of a top-notch inline hockey facility, the parks department and a city council representative invested in a design team to customize a multi-purpose facility, which would expand the Nations-Tobin Recreation Center. The $2.3 million, 17,000-square-foot facility would eventually house a lighting system so advanced that there was no need for extra lights if a game was televised on the local channel. Additionally the concrete leveling of the surface took skating to a whole new level. Normally, a concrete floor is grated smooth to 1/8", but this surface was grated in six sections by a computer to achieve a 1/100" level. Once the special surface was poured (Sport-court, an industry standard comprised of plastic the, which is normally used at the Olympic level for both roller sports and volleyball), the new facility's floor supplanted the old plywood surface the players used previously What followed next was a manufactured, aluminum and glass rink. By August 2003, a bunch of happy hockey players skated onto the "big blue floor" for the first time. "This is the smoothest floor I've ever skated on" is the common statement by players.

The facility itself houses the main room, with an inline hockey rink permanently installed, contoured bleachers, raised spectator sealing for 300, team benches and five dressing rooms for players.

The center continues to use the original court, now named the "little rink," for 3-on-3 divisions of play hockey practices and other activities. But inline hockey players do not solely use the rink. Table tennis, cheerleading, studio dance practice and Tae Kwon Do all find schedule time on a weekly basis. Both floors also play host to 60 indoor soccer teams weekly. And the new facility also doubles as a special event venue. The United States Fencing Association's local affiliate held a tournament recently where more than 200 youth participated. The venue's space is large enough to accommodate medium-sized events such as the fencing tournament, as king as the audience level will not reach more than 500.

The Amateur Athletic Union's (AAU) inline hockey section also held its regional Junior Olympic Qualification tournament this summer at the Nations-Tobin arena. This was the first premier inline hockey event since the facility opened its doors last summer. Twenty-four teams played 47 games in two and one-half days. Six hundred people filled the building from dawn to dusk.

AAU Inline Hockey National Director Keith Noll notes, "I got several calls and e-mails the very next clay and everybody was telling me what a great, quality experience they had in El Paso. The program and the "barn" [hockey term for rink] they have is absolutely first-rate."

But this is not the only rink in town. There are two privately owned rinks in El Paso, Texas. One facility has always concentrated on recreational use and refrained from hosting league play. The other rink was at first involved with inline hockey leagues, but eventually switched to recreational play once El Paso's public facility opened in 2003. If there is a municipal roller rink operating currently and charging legitimate cost-based player fees, than the private rinks cannot compete.

Presently, the inline hockey program at Nations-Tobin is varied enough that any skill level inline hockey player can participate. Since the teams are formed each season on a balanced basis, novice players can play right along with experienced players. On the floor, each player tends to go up against his or her counterpart on the other team. The games and the season come out very even in competition. The program has almost 300 players, who play year-round. Each recreation league season is three months long, and has more than 800 player slots. Every player can play in more than one division. Many kids, as well as some adults, are at the center five or six days a week.

Doug Blanchette has been a volunteer coach from the very beginning, when participants played on the makeshift surface and used secondhand materials, he says the new facility is an example of the best type of inclusion--inviting low- or moderate-income families to be active in a team sport. "We can bring in so many people that would never even have gotten into the sport just because they can't afford it," he says. The program charges $25, which includes uniforms, equipment and various sundries.

Clubs do form on a competitive basis for tournament play. Inline hockey has a number of national organizations that provide a regional and national-level tournament experience, at a variety of competitive levels.

Because of the forward-thinking initiatives of El Paso Parks and Recreation Department, there are about half-a-dozen players on a daily basis skating on the big blue floor at Nations-Tobin. They are doing so for free. If Johnny Smith signed up at Nations-Tobin, he would get to play on two to four teams weekly; 25-45 games in a three-month season, weekly hockey school lessons, and all the "open floor" free practice time he desir for a total fee of $25.

That's the power of what public recreation can do, and private: rinks can't. Even DelVecchio from USA Hockey agrees that it is easier to work with public recreation departments than private rinks because their interest is solely to do what is best for the community. "[The private rinks] are always concerned with the bottom line," he says.

Roller Hockey's History: Dating back to the 18th Century

The birth of the inline skate dates back to 1735 in Belgium, when a musical and mechanical inventor, John Joseph Merlin, invented a pair of skates "contrived to run on small metallic wheels." But the skates did not morph into what we consider inline skates until 1966, when the Chicago Roller Skate Company attempted to create an inline skate. Unfortunately, its marketing of it failed to entice the public because of its discomfort, stability and brake reliability.

* 1979--Scott Olson, a Minneapolis hockey player, and his brother, Brennan, bought a pair of the Chicago Skate Company's skates in hopes of cross training in the off season. They modified the skates using ice hockey materials and began selling them under the company name, Rollerblade, Inc.

* 1984--Minneapolis businessman Bob Naegele, Jr., purchased the Olsons' fledgling company, and began marketing the skate nationwide.

Within five years, about 3.3 million people owned in-line skates.

* 1992--The International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS) introduces in-line hockey, or roller hockey, to the Olympics as a demonstration sport in Barcelona, Spain.

* 1995--FIRS went on to create the first world in-line roller hockey championships for men, which were hosted in Chicago, Ill.

* 1996--The first in a continuing series of world Inline Hockey Cups for Junior Men was held by FIRS in Chicago, Ill.

* 1998--The Amateur Athletic Union hosts its first roller hockey championship during the AAU Junior Olympic Games in Hampton Roads, Va. The number of inline skaters ballooned in 1998 to more than 30 million.

* 2002--Women's Inline Hockey world championship held in Rochester, N.Y.