Is there money in the PIHA?

[jteezy]

I live in Canada and i have played south of the border with some success and I am very curious in finding out if there is any incentive for me to move to the usa to play in the PIHA. I know that the players dont get a salary but are there teams that pay for living expenses or set you up with a job or any type of perks like that. I believe that the PIHA is the best league in North America and they treat their players extremely well. So any information or opinons on this subject is greatly appreciated and ya i know i would have to make a team first so im not getting ahead of myself and is there any Canadians in the PIHA? And i also want to add that there are many amazing players in Canada that dont get any recognition for their contributions to the sport of Inline Hockey and the game is very big up here and continues to grow every year so we are not just ice hockey players. One more question does anyone think that the RHI or some form of it could be revived?

[TheSnake22]

if you hang around the site long enough, you'll learn that the general consensus is that the sport is not ready to support a full or even semi-professional hockey league. You could argue that PIHA is semi-professional, but i would say that in comparison, the NHL, AHL and even ECHL are professional leagues whereas the UHL, CHL, QSPHL and other leagues around Canada and the States would be considered semi-pro, and all of those leagues pay players on at least a per game basis. PIHA is great, and there are some benefits that may include travel, equipment and rink time. Most players pay to play in PIHA, very very few are paid in return.

PIHA has a bright future, however, the only way any league will be able to sustain itself beyond some minor compensations is by establishing a base of interest among fans and youth players. Sure we can maybe get by for a period of time with some significant sponsor contributions but they are not a long term solution.

So in conclusion, no it is not worth it for you to move to the U.S. unless you already have a place to stay and a job lined up. But if you can find a good job and an apartment in a city not too far from a PIHA franchise, then you'll have a ton of fun playing for one of our great teams.

Maybe next year or one following the league will make another effort to expand into canada, but that will have to come with a little more organization from our neighbors to the north.

-To clarify, the general reason why RHI failed is that the cost exceeded the revenue to a degree that it was beyond repair. The league attempted to capitalize on the exponential growth of inline hockey as opposed to growing the sport gradually. In my opinion, RHI could have sustained itself had it realized it's limitations and adjusted its budget accordingly. But teams can't operate 15,000 seat arena's without a fan base, and when the fan base shrank, the budget didn't. If PIHA has the patience, it will be successful.

[TULaw]

all new pro leagues fail to make a profit, heck even many major pro sports teams fail to make a profit. What the sport needs is a few individuals with deep pockets who love the sport of Inline Hockey and want to help it grow. I firmly believe that in order to grow the sport needs a higher profile pro league to introduce new kids to Inline Hockey and give them an incentive to try the sport. I was one of the kids who fell in Love with Inline Hockey because of RHI and i am sure there are many others on here as well. I think a few smart deep pocket owners could succeed with a new pro league. Here are the requirments i believe:

1- Start small with a 8-10 team league in markets that had been successful with pro roller hockey in the past (Anahiem for example) and markets with strong youth and adult roller hockey programs.

2- it would need to start off as a regional league, not national like the RHI was. so that it could be a primarily bus travel league, kind of like the current Central Hockey League.

3- They would need to play in smaller minor league hockey buildings like the Central Hockey league buildings. I think there are many new small facilities 5,000-10,000 seaters being built for the CHL and ECHL these buildings would be perfect.

4- It would need to stay true to the accepted structure and rules of the Inline game and shouldnt try to re-invent the sport. I dont see something like Pro Beach Hockey or Speed Hockey beeing a sucess. Though i think it would not be full contact like the RHI and MLRH.

I think it can be done, a few years ago who would have thought Indoor Lacrosse would be as popular as it is, but with a few smart owners who promoted the game it has really taken off.

[TheSnake22]

ya you were going well until you got to your conclusion. lacrosse has a large and most importantly growing base of youth, high school, and college players that far exceeds where inline hockey is at the moment. lacrosse has been a D1 NCAA sport for over 35 years, and the sport itself has been around for well over a hundred years. even indoor lacrosse, comparable to inline for ice hockey, has been around for almost 75 years. Inline skates weren't even invented until the late 80's.

While your proposal would be nice, it is completely unrealistic. You said it yourself, even some professional sports teams fail to turn a profit. How are you going to convince investors to throw away money for 15 years while these kids grow up into inline hockey players and consumers in their industry? Why wouldn't you put that same money to better use and build a solid base for the sport by helping youth organizations develop players and programs so that we can establish and maintain the steady growth any sport needs to succeed? If you dump money on top of a pyramid with a weak base, it will collapse, just like the RHI...

-- those smart Lacrosse owners, they wouldn't have been successful if they didn't already have an audience to which they could promote their game...

[RichardGraham]

[QUOTE=TULaw;34648]I was one of the kids who fell in Love with Inline Hockey because of RHI and i am sure there are many others on here as well. QUOTE]

Hi TULaw,

If you've got any cool memories from the games you attended, I'd like to hear them for possible inclusion in the book I'm writing about RHI. Thank you.

[TheSnake22]

Richard i'm sure you know more about the RHI than almost anyone on here, maybe you could give us a little insight about it's structure and some of it's highlights and pitfalls...

[Dave Garland]

I have a lot of comments on this, which I will get out soon. Great to hear the insight from everyone posting!

[TULaw]

ya you were going well until you got to your conclusion. lacrosse has a large and most importantly growing base of youth, high school, and college players that far exceeds where inline hockey is at the moment. lacrosse has been a D1 NCAA sport for over 35 years, and the sport itself has been around for well over a hundred years. even indoor lacrosse, comparable to inline for ice hockey, has been around for almost 75 years. Inline skates weren't even invented until the late 80's.

While your proposal would be nice, it is completely unrealistic. You said it yourself, even some professional sports teams fail to turn a profit. How are you going to convince investors to throw away money for 15 years while these kids grow up into inline hockey players and consumers in their industry? Why wouldn't you put that same money to better use and build a solid base for the sport by helping youth organizations develop players and programs so that we can establish and maintain the steady growth any sport needs to succeed? If you dump money on top of a pyramid with a weak base, it will collapse, just like the RHI...

-- those smart Lacrosse owners, they wouldn't have been successful if they didn't already have an audience to which they could promote their game...

I understand your point, I used the example of Indoor lacrosse because like Inline Hockey it is a offshoot of a much older sport in this case Ice Hockey. Indoor Lacrosse like inline Hockey is NOT a div. 1 college sport and Indoor Lacrosse as a popular spectator sport is a fairly recent phenomenon. But your arguments regarding Lacrosse could also be made about Inline Hockey and its big brother Ice Hockey ( History, Traditionm, Div. 1 sport etc..)
Dont forget Inline Hockey also had at one point a large growing youth base which now has grown up and we see the results of this in NARCH, PIHA, MLRH but the youth base seems to be stagnant and I believe that the lack of a top professional league might be a part of the problem.
I think a good comparison to RHI would be the NASL for all you soccer fans.
the NASL came at a time when Soccer was a real novelty in America as RHI was in the 90's, it experienced a surge in popularity, especially in a single market, The New York Cosmos who are the equivalent of the Anahiem Bullfrogs. Aside from the Cosmos there were only a handfull of other viable franchises and the rest would come and go and the league suffered from over expansion and over spending and poor ownership. the league failed much like RHI did. A number of years went by without a Professional soccer league went by and the sport suffered due to this and did not grow in popularity. It wasnt until after the 1994 world cup that Soccer would get a true pro league in the United States in the form of MLS. MLS in the early days was made up of two billionarie owners who saw a future in the sport and those two kept the league afloat during years of bad attendence in giant football stadiums, poor quality play and lack of interest. But these two owners had smart business sense they grew slowy. The league started out with 10 teams and only this year did they add number 13. they are playing in their own smaller buildings, the league is becoming profitable, the league is gaining investors, sponsors and interest.
What I am getting at is that the sport of Roller Hockey has already had its NASL which many Soccer fans looked back on fondly like many of us look back on RHI. within the next 5-10 years the sport of Inline needs its own MLS in order to grow as a sport.
I seriously think the next 5 years would be a good time for a true pro league to emerge if it had sound ownership backing it up. The reason is that the sport now, unlike in the days of RHI has a strong pool of good players to play in such a league. Second all of the kids who went to RHI games as kids and played Roller Hockey are in their 20's and 30's now, Roller Hockey isnt something new to them, its not a novelity and they would support the league as season ticket holders, I know I would.
But the league would have to treat the game as a "real" sport, not a gimmick like some attempts at a pro league. It would have to play the way these people grew up playing the game in order to be taken seriously.

[TheSnake22]

i'm surprised that as a canadian you underestimate the popularity of "box lacrosse" or indoor lacrosse in the USA... again, i don't think you can compare even indoor lacrosse because the game is almost identical except to outdoor lacrosse other than the playing field, goalies and some rules. Anyone that played one form of lacrosse can and usually does play the other. The other huge thing that pro lacrosse has is that each league embraces the other. Most players who attempt to make a living at lacrosse play indoor in the winter and then outdoor in the summer. So the best players are playing in both leagues. Do you think the NHL would let it's players play inline hockey in the summer? possibly, but not likely...

I do find your comparison to soccer much more interesting, however again, you fail to realize that soccer is one of the biggest youth sports in the country and the biggest sport in the world. Soccer's base in the US wasn't nearly as sturdy 30 years ago as it is today.

Basically we're in a chicken v. egg debate... i think you need the base to build on, you think you need a goal to build towards... in reality, either can work, but which one is more likely to work? i think you're going to be a much safer bet to succeed by slowly building from the ground up as opposed to dumping money into something that you can't be positive will work out in the long term.

[RichardGraham]

Richard i'm sure you know more about the RHI than almost anyone on here, maybe you could give us a little insight about it's structure and some of it's highlights and pitfalls...

Hi Jake,

You'll have to buy my book. Just kidding. But I'll hold off on answering this post in too much detail for now; I know myself well enough to know that if I talk too much and too specifically about RHI, I might not finish the book.

Suffice it to say that playing in huge professional arenas was both a benefit and a detriment to the league's success. Playing at the Anaheim Pond, the Great Western Forum, the Kiel Center and other major venues added glamour and credibility to the league, while at the same time, the rents were exorbitant for a fledgling league.

Highlights? 13,000 fans at opening night in Anaheim. 11,000+ fans at the RHI All-Star Game in Vancouver. ESPN coverage. A great product with great players. The NHL connection. And many more.