Wheels and Floors

[Rebecca]

I received the following request today.

Our school is in the development of getting our club together. Our school might let us use one of our gym floors to practice on, but they want documentation from someone about how skates won?t ruin the floor. I was wondering if you could help us out at all?

Here is part of my response:

Hmm, this is a tough request ... This is a bit dynamic since we would probably need to know what is on the floor and what wheels your players use. My guess is that the answer to this needs to come from a wheel manufacturer. All we could really tell your school is that we have no knowledge of wheels ruining floors in other universities that are utilized for roller hockey practice.

FEEDBACK is appreciated here. I think we all know that indoor wheels used on gym floors don't do damage.

Thanks!

Rebecca Breitel
President, Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association
<A HREF="http://www.ecrha.net" target="_new">http://www.ecrha.net</A>

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." -- Winston Churchill



Rebecca

[calihockey]

hyper and labeda i think both still make wheels that can be used on wood floor. i would not allow the players to use anything with a lot of grip. i skated on a old wood floor with the red star rebels and any time i cut hard or stopped, it left marks. the rink now uses sport court because buffing it out was the only way to help keep the rink looking good. honestly i think if u atleast show the effort to recommend roll on surface wheels, you will show the school that you respect their concerns and are willing to work to keep their gym in good shape.

[MDE3]

Wood floors were the traditional surface for many family roller rinks and as such were commonly used for roller hockey as the sport developed. They do provide an excellent grip surface, but the verathane/polyurethane finishes uses will scuff if the wheels uses have enough grip to play the game properly. It should not be considered when permitting the use of a gymnasium floor that certain wheels should be used only to protect the floor if those wheels only permit the game to be played at a lesser level(ie extremely high durometer wheels that will not grip enough to scuff the floor when stopping or turning hard) - just to protect the finish. Normal maintenance and buffing should return the floor to an acceptable finish and no real damage will be done to the surface. If the visual impact of the floor is more important than the purpose for which the gym was designed, those in charge should look carefully at their sports program priorities. Outdoor black wheels should not be permitted , nor skates with any kind of external bolt heads or nuts that protrude beyond the chassis. Other than this exception almost any indoor hockey wheels will work and none will probably mark the floor any worse than another. The very sticky wheels like the Labeda Milleniums , Hyper Trinities, Stickies etc. are overkill for most wooden floors, and can actually reduce acceleration and top speed. The soles of many basketball shoes used are actually similar compounds to the materials which compose roller hockey wheels, Scuffing from basketball and roller hockey should not be that much different.

[ClarkAddison]

I would think the concern would be more of what the sticks would do to the surface even more than the wheels.