The Future of Professional Inline Hockey

[hockeyburlington]

What do you guys think about the future of Professional Inline Hockey?

BE CANADIAN
PLAY HOCKEY

RYAN HARRISON

[johnny2suede]

I was disappointed to see the disgraceful failure of the IHA. It looks like the league has left a pile of sh#t. Just another classic example of all of us hoping for an unproven entity to somehow make it. I think we are a trusting bunch of souls.

To answer your question, I think professional roller hockey is now an oxymoron.

Please, please, don't respond in any way with anything that has to do with MLRH. Saw it here in California 2 years ago and it was laughable...a total embarrassment to this sport.

[yokes]

Well unfortunatly id have to say that a full on pro paid league is way off!!! PIHA is run great and have been involved for years and shows no signs of slowing down and even though its the one league that shows the greatest chance of eventually paying its players i think that time is far off. Whats the scariest part of this whole thing is that the best players around got together and even offered to play for free to keep a league going and for the good of the sport and it couldnt work. Apparently you have one man who once again puts a bad mark on our sport, i dont know the whole story just goin on the details i read on IHA's website. The MLRH on the other hand has been around now for awhile and seems to always have teams but there is alot of turnover. If the sponser i heard comes through like i hear then it might bring alot of credibilty and publicity to them. But in a whole having played in most of these leagues they will primarily be dedicated players just traveling and playing for the fun and love of the game.

If you dont hit me im not stopping it.

[NoMoreNiceGuy]

You seem to miss the point, it is not always the league, but the team owners. If there were 10 or 12 dedicated owners, any league could make it. MLRH was full pro in 1998 with 14 teams, but in 1999 it was the owners that caused the league fold (some owners refused fly to Denver for a single game). An away game like that cost $10,000 (air fare, buss, hotel, food).

I don't think PIHA was ever set to be a full paying league, from day one, the most they offered was uniforms, equipment and free play.

Besides owner loyalty, the next biggest problem is that there is no place for pro teams to play. For this sport, you need arenas with 2000 to 5000 seats. You can get Nassau County Coliseum for free, but the union contract requires full staffing at a cost of over $30,000 per game. The same applies to many other buildings. Even the Mennen Arena cost over $8000 to rent for one game and only seats 2000.

Most minor league hockey teams now play in arenas with seating for over 8000 fans. The old local arenas are all gone (the old people remember the big wooden sheds in Cherry Hill NJ and Springfield, MA. Then, if you can find such a building, you have to buy a floor (and insulating under floor) and put it in for each game (at a cost of $600 to $1000). This was tried in the old Hershey Arena one summer and the floor had condensation all over the place.

There are a few college arenas that would work, but not the new ones. Allentown has a beautiful arena but it was built for basketball and seats about 4500, but even when you push the seats back at either end, the floor is only 170 feet long.

I am not aware of any dedicated roller hockey arena that seats 2000 or more (and you would need 10 of them) and that is the break even point for a full pro team. If you want to see the proof, I have boxes of research on all this.

[NLane]

I know you can't be talking about the Warriors-Saxons game. It went into overtime and the goalies were standing on their heads to make great saves. Very exciting.

[Stampede]

Bottom line if enough people will not pay to come and watch a roller hockey game then it will NEVER be pro.

What would really take the sport forward is one governing body, who annual registartion fees are paid to. Local leagues in states, from kids to vets. Then a "best of the best" type competetion with money prizes. That would be a spectacle and folks may pay to see it......

Eventually the individual states may generate enough revenue to fund a pro team per state/town, which all the recreational players who are registered would be eligable for.
All the players who register would be given the chance to vote for "x" ammount of players each who would play in this "dream team", this way the personal politics would stay out of it. Votes are counted and the pro team for that area in announced for the season.

Any sponsorship etc would be made to the state e.g. Rink Rat sponsor the New York division, Mission the Californian etc etc to help partial fund the team, with the rest of the money coming from the national body, distributed pro rata to how much each state/region membership contributes to the national picture e.g. New York represents 8% they get 8% of the funds.

If it had one body then the players would have to choose where they wanted to play and couldn't play in 3 different leagues.

E.g of hypothetical finances
100,000 players in US all pay $50 reg fee per year...
Generates $5 million.... which is a whole lot of money.
X ammount is distributed to the regions for the administration costs of the leagues/ refs and X ammount retained to run the pro level league and host competitions with prize money. All players get paid the same, with bonuses for individual performances/team performances.

At grass roots, teams still pay to play games which covers building rental etc.
From the senior division, all the players per region are put on a ballot paper and every registered player to that region votes for the "pro team". These guys are paid to play and have all there equipment paid for etc. Train and play like pro players. If they can't commit to this due to other work commitments then the guy with the next most votes takes his spot. This system would encourage every one in the region to get involved with games as they have a say in who plays & represents them.

I know it's a lot of "what if's", but if this was done it would build the game from the ground up, rather than running before it can walk or running on limited funds.





None of that stinkin' root beer

[hockeyburlington]

In my opinion I don't think we will see a RHI style pro league ever again. The most we will have for the next 10 - 15 years is leagues like the IHA building up then falling down. As you guys say we need the governing bodies of roller hockey to come together....do you really think that will ever happen? Roller hockey is just as big as some sports and we need a pro league/ market where the future stars of roller hockey came come to play, but that will probably never happen.

BE CANADIAN
PLAY HOCKEY

RYAN HARRISON<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by hockeyburlington on 10/04/05 02:33 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

[Brooklynite10]

2 years ago, MLRH was a real good league with the potential of growing and becoming great. Now that the XIHL is out of the picture, I think the MLRH has a chance to put out a good product once again. This might depend on the idea of having 2 divisions. A big problem with these non money making leagues is travel commitment and expenses. Can anyone verify the rumor of having 2 divisions this season is actually true ?

[NoMoreNiceGuy]

The Fire Ants are coming back to MLRH, that was one of the teams from the 1998 pro season.

[hockeyburlington]

The Fire ants plus the Virgina Wings both teams from 1998 this could be good!

BE CANADIAN
PLAY HOCKEY

RYAN HARRISON

[wolves89]

the VA wings played last year.... they got smoked everygame, no offense to them league was just not cut out for them.... whats going to hurt MLRH play is PIHA overlapping, the better players, for the most part play that... last season was a perfect example

and on top of that you are adding 10,000 dollar prize into the mix... i would much rather drive to feasterville to play 2 games, then down to south carolina for 1 terrible game and have to pay for gas and food.

i drove to VA to play them last year... it's in the middle of nowhere, and had to get dressed in a party room... that's not professional

i'm not slow, i'm patient

[SpiderRat]

12 teams, 3 divisions of 4 is what I know so far. Each division, for example, NY, NJ, CT and MA., will play each other in inter-conference play, 3 times each. That will cut down on travel. That makes 9 inter-conference games. To complete the schedule, MA may fly south to play a 2 game series. And so on. Now please, before everyone jumps all over this post, this is just rumored at this point. I do not represent MLRH, this is just what I've heard along the way. I'm sure the MLRH website will detail everything soon. I do know that the North American Champion will travel to Prague for the MLRH World Championships. Like I said before, that beats going to Colorado to split 10g's. At least to me it's better.

Blah Blah Blah, Shoot the puck already

[SpiderRat]

Most expansion teams, no matter what the sport, or level, has difficulty their first year. Instead of knocking a team, why can't you give the team and the league a chance. I'm sure there were some PIHA teams that didn't fair well their first year out. Isn't that why the league went to the current format? Two fifteen minute games, played back to back. I believe that format was derived out of games being too lop-sided. You can't score too many goals against a team in fifteen minutes.

Blah Blah Blah, Shoot the puck already

[NoMoreNiceGuy]

The wings were just using the name, I believe the fire ants are the original team (but of course, not the same players)

[wolves89]

its actually 2 twelves minute halves, and we scored a bunch of goals in that time... as did every other team in the league

i'm not slow, i'm patient