PBH - Pro Beach Hockey on ESPN Classic

[cus32]

ESPN Classic is now showing a Pro Beach Hockey marathon today. Started at 1:00pm and is ending at 5:00pm with the championship game starting at 4:00pm.

If MLRH and PIHA would adopt ramps, would that get the sport back on ESPN? You could even do some crazy tricks off the rails (goal posts).

Enjoy.

Cus32

[growl89]

OMG i almost forgot how bad these games actually were .... did anyone else watch this black eye of the sport today? the surface must have been terrible, because christian skoryna (sp?) is awesome and looks like he can't even skate on that stuff, people falling all over the place lol 2 pt shots... simply amazing... the only thing worse then the games is the announcing haha


All the more reason to help PIHA take off, to forget this stuff haha

[SandeHockey17]

Funny thing about that whole PBH. As far as I know, it wasn't a "league". It took place over the course of two weeks and that was it. It was just televised to seem as though it was all summer long. I could be wrong on this, but a friend of mine knew several of the people involved with it, and he told me that it was only two weeks.

[mcchockey9]

It was actually a tournament. They had round robin games (escentially), then had playoffs. They had the V-form skates for a little while and then went to straight frames. Not sure if anyone wore those V-forms, but I bought a pair, and they absolutely SUCKED! Anyways, the league was only 2 weeks, and was a tournament, not a league.

[rhhof]

Actually, the first two years the players were required by contract to were V-Formation skates or chassis and wear the Franklin equipment and use their sticks - the goalies were the only one that got around it sometimes with helmets and skates...Year three Mission was the supplier and they all wore those, except goalies sometimes....

The tournament the first year was four weekends, not sure about year two, but year three was two - they got smart and expended less money!!

Jeez - it was slow - the Hammer looked like a speedster though, lol

[RichardGraham]

Hi Folks,

You might be interested in this story... it was published on Inline Hockey Central in January, 1998.

***

Pro Beach Hockey

ESPN and espn2 have announced that they will broadcast the new Pro Beach Hockey series beginning June 8, 1998, with the network agreeing to broadcast 26 one-hour original telecasts in the first year of a three-year commitment. The initial Pro Beach Hockey season will feature the 35-game tournament taped weekends on the beach at Huntington Beach, California, from May 2-24, 1998.

According to league founder David McLane, who also founded the now-defunct World Roller Hockey League (WRHL), ESPN will launch Pro Beach Hockey series in an effort to "capture the lucrative and illusive roller hockey consumer."

"More than three-and-a-half million participants currently play roller hockey, yet until now, not one single entity has captured that consumer," McLane said. "Pro Beach Hockey brings the excitement of hockey together with the party atmosphere of the beach, hip music and youth fashion for the ultimate sporting event."

Pro Beach Hockey games will be played on a specially designed 168' by 72' portable HockeyBall rink within a 2,500-seat venue at the beach. The game combines contact, end-zone ramps and a two-point conversion.

"The ramps allow players to take shots on goal at full stride to increase the speed of the game," said Pro Beach Hockey Commissioner Chris McSorley, who won championship titles with the Anaheim Bullfrogs and Buffalo Stampede of Roller Hockey International. "Combined with the two-point conversion, the ramps bring to hockey the sizzle that hockey has been lacking," said McSorley. The league will also utilize sudden-death shoot-outs and follow the no-offsides rule.

The six 10-player teams, named Salsa, Dawg Pac, Heavy Metal, Web Warriors, Gargoyles and Xpress, will compete in 30 regular-season games leading up to a four-team championship playoff series. The championship finals will air on ESPN on August 29-30, 1998.

(On November 20, 1997, Pro Beach Hockey announced that V-Formation had signed a sponsorship and licensing agreement to become the league's official skate. All players will exclusively wear V-Formation skates, wheels and chassis, and V-Formation will launch the PBH 3000 skate as the exclusive licensed skate of Pro Beach Hockey.) For more information, contact Anjanette Stayton at Pro Beach Hockey, (310) 419-3262.

[GdubInCali]

I remeber the horrible slogan from when it first came out "Ramp it up!" The announcer would always say "Ramp it up! Folks look at him go!"

[Gladiators6]

As retarded as the Ramps were did anyone see D. Costanza bank the ball up the ramp and out in front of the net for a goal in the championmship game?

[johnw18]

MY favorite part was when Ray Matz pulled his falsies out on national TV.

[BourneRoller]

I tried to download that off BitTorrent, couldn't find it anywhere. Has anyone had any success (or tried) downloading it anywhere? Even nothing on YouTube, suprisingly. I think thtis would be something funny to have down the road.

[Wingman]

Sounds more like a spectator's sport, with the ramps and all. Hopefully PIHA will be on TV soon, they already have local coverage in Cincinatti. There's things that could be taken off the air for Inline Hockey, I mean, cup stacking? Come on already...