Inline Survey......State of the sport

[MDE3]

Question for rink owners, managers, hockey program administrators, coaches, etc. (any others welcome too)

What is the age breakdown for players playing in your leagues expressed as a percentage of the total participants in all your programs including adult.
ie:

5 - 10
11 - 14
15 - 17
18 - 21
22+

Is the total number of participants growing, diminishing and if so in which age groups?

Is you rink a traditional roller rink(wood floor disco type), or dedicated hockey type facility with boards, glass, sport court or equivalent?

Do you have a dedicated and qualified instructor for clinics?

How well recieved are these clinics if available?

Do you still have ball hockey in your facility?

Are elite or travel teams a big part of your program?

Do you participate in elite tournaments, and if so which ones?

Preferred tournaments?

Do you see a need for interclub league play as opposed to tournament play?

How strongly do you feel about this?

Is high school inline hockey strong?

Obviously all these questions do not apply to all rinks but it would certainly help us all as a sport to get as complete a picture of the demographics as possible.

[TheRageHeadCoach]

1. Can't answer that one. As I just run what people want. I do a 12U team, 14U and looks like a 17U team is in the works.

2. Diminishing in all except 17U right now, because in this area, Ice Hockey is predominate.

3. We were practicing outdoor (huge disadvantage) but now it looks like we have made a deal with the route 100 (wood) roller rink in the area. There are no facilities within an hour from here with sport court etc...

4. No

5. N/A

6. The Route 100 league plays ball, obviously we practice puck when possible. Ball roller hockey is very popular in the area.

7. We are a travel team.

8. We play tournaments within a 2-2 1/2 hour range right now.

9. N/A

10. Not sure what you mean. I think that our players need to play in a league aside from tournament play, which we will implement next season, because it keeps them in somewhat game shape.

11. If you're referring to 10, very strongly.

12. No, quite the opposite.

Hope this helps ya out.

Joshua Brown
Head Coach / Manager
Rage Roller Hockey
www.ragehockey.net

[sactosaxons]

Hey MDE3-

We (my kids and I) play/work at three rinks locally - I know of four rinks in our area (3 indoor, 1 outdoor). I'll try to answer as well as possible for all four.

Two rinks have only adult leagues - the third has youth and adult programs. The outdoor rink is a parks & rec. youth program.

Outdoor youth program very strong 'till it rains! All other adult/youth programs seem to be holding steady.

All three indoor rinks are hockey-dedicated; outdoor is sportcourt.

Youth clinics have excellent instructors. There are adult/women's/beginner clinics at one indoor facility with great instructors.

No ball hockey anywhere that I'm aware of.

Elite/travel teams at one facility.

Interclub league play is available and most travel team players play house leagues (not necessarily all on same team to spread talent across the league). One local High School team used the men's platinum summer league as a "tune-up" for fall HS league play.

Feel league play by elite/travel teams is very important -provides a less-intense game to work on what's learned in travel practices; allows players to play with/against a wide variety of players; another hour a week on the floor can only help their overall game!

High School leagues were very strong about two years ago then they started to dwindle -the good news is that they're resurging this fall to a very strong level with more than enough teams for Varsity and JV leagues.

Overall, I'd say roller hockey is holding steady - I'd obviously like to see growth in the youth programs but it seems the growth is in the high school ages. We're hangin' in there!

[MDE3]

Thanks for the responses...

I see a real need for league play, not only in-house but interclub league play - similar to the ice hockey programs, where clubs who are in less populated areas have a venue to play against local clubs on a regular basis, without the more expensive travel that the larger tournament organizations require, and being able to play other clubs at similar skill levels instead of coming up against the elite teams while trying to build a program - and have some fun too. To make it worthwhile, longer games - ie three periods of 15 minutes stop time - could be played, so that you are not traveling a couple of hours to play for 30 minutes.

For the growth of the sport I see this as necessary as well as the continued play of ball hockey in rinks where the format is not considered safe for puck use ie, no glass or netting all around, as well as all the decorations that normally festoon a "dico rink" which invariable get more trashed in continued puck play. Keeping these programs going will continue to help grow the sport adding "feeder" teams and players to the more developed and dedicated hockey facilities.

Obviously where there is a limited player base and under the existing tournament formats, - many of those clubs in disco rinks ended up playing only puck because they needed to be familiar with playing puck to have any chance at local tournaments where only puck was played. as time went on the pressure would build on the rink owners to"get with the program" and convert the rink to a more puck friendly environment. Faced with a significant expenditure, many of these rink owners just gave up their hockey programs entirely as they make more money from "session skating" and parties.

I am still curious and hope to get responses showing the percentage breakdown of players from 6 years old and up.

My gut feeling tells me that many of the 8 - 16 youth players abandon roller for several years in hopes of achieving some modicum of success in ice hockey......when they find themselves not of the "chosen few" they then may come back to inline. In some areas they may continue to play both, but in many cases it is not financially convenient to do so, so ice comes first. Hence the ranks of the juniors and adults begin to swell again, where many can still play a form of hockey and because it is non contact, feel safer knowing they have to go to work the next day. In many adult ice hockey house leagues non contact is the format as well - for the same reasons.

There is a dilemna for me here as I really feel that learning to play full contact hockey, makes for better skaters and better team awareness. I feel the non contact version makes for better stick skills, but at the expense of skating skills and team skills. I think that for those who would play elite level hockey, the full contact version of the sport should be taught. In going this way I think the sport would gain more credibility among the "ice hockey is the only real hockey" camp, thereby drawing more skilled coaching and players and fans who would respect the inline game more.....rightly or wrongly. I think that the lack of parity of coaching instruction between the two sports is one of the great problems in growing the inline game. While there are certainly exceptions to this rule, it remains on the whole one of the major hurdles to growing this sport.

[jmacias34]

What is the age breakdown for players playing in your leagues expressed as a percentage of the total participants in all your programs including adult.

5 - 10: 25%
11 - 14: 60%
15 - 17: 15%
18 - 21: Not Offered
22+: Not Offered

Is the total number of participants growing, diminishing and if so in which age groups?
Diminishing in the 5-10 mainly because they are aging out and moving up. Typically we lose about 30% of our kids in the summer because we're are an outdoor facility in SoCal.

Is you rink a traditional roller rink(wood floor disco type), or dedicated hockey type facility with boards, glass, sport court or equivalent?
Outdoor Roll-On Surface, HomeBuilt Boards, No Cover

Do you have a dedicated and qualified instructor for clinics?
Yep, Me, Myself & I. I offer several clinics such as 'Learn To Inline Skate' 'Hockey Initiation' 'Intermediate Hockey Skill' 'Goaltending 101' & a Referee Seminar.

How well recieved are these clinics if available?
Very poorly. Advertising is an issue (with specific limitations).

Do you still have ball hockey in your facility?
Considering opening an Adult DEK Hockey League

Are elite or travel teams a big part of your program?
Nope. We're a YMCA, I'm thinking about putting together some teams for the California State Games on 2004.

Do you participate in elite tournaments, and if so which ones? Nope.

Do you see a need for interclub league play as opposed to tournament play? No

Is high school inline hockey strong? No