Summit Story Now on Site

[RichardGraham]

Hi Folks,

MAKING SENSE OF THE SUMMIT
A review of the recent 2005 Inline Hockey Industry Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
by Richard Graham, with Dan Guard and Rebecca Breitel

is now on the IHC Home Page.

More to come on the summit, along with Bill Raue of MLRH's thoughts about the summit, and the future of inline hockey, coming soon.

Sincerely,

Richard Graham
Editor
Inline Hockey Central

[CoachFoo]

Rich,

I have to be very reserved about this entire summit with respect to aau and usa hockey in the same room together. I would not believe the thought of unification for one second (hopefully I'm dead wrong).

I've sat in inline meetings with both organizations and have a feel for each organization. I have to think that one of two thing are going on here. Either one of the organizations want out of inline (and I don't think it's aau) or it's a case of "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer".



Coach Foo

[RichardGraham]

Hi Rich,

I highly doubt USA Hockey/USA Hockey InLine will get out of inline hockey. The very fact that Dave Ogrean, a fan of our sport, is back at the helm of USA Hockey, is a good sign.

I think a more likely outcome of the recent inline hockey summit is that USAHIL, AAU and USARS will find ways to work together, rather than at cross purposes, to help move inline hockey forward. Sniping at each other sure won't do the trick.

Sincerely,

Richard Graham
Editor
Inline Hockey Central

[CoachFoo]

I hope your right.

[Defense1st]

Let's say for a minute that AAU is willing to work with USAHIL for the betterment of the whole sport. Because both groups recognize that without cooperation the sport will die.

USAHIL already has programs and staff in place that are "world" recognized for training coaches, training and qualifying refs, training players by age group and ability level, the NTDP program and the Junior Festivals.

AAU (as an extension of USARS) has the NGB status to play in the Pan Am Games, the World Games and the FIRS World Championships. They also run the Junior Olympics for youth (which has always been larger and more competitive than the USAHIL Summer Finals).

Rumor has it the AAU insurance program is better all around than the USAHIL one. Also, I have heard (not experienced) that USAHIL nevers pays off and is hard to claim, while AAU has paid off even though it is hard to claim.

It seems to me that USAHIL with the experience in programming of their parent USA Hockey is better equipped to run some parts of youth inline hockey, while AAU's expertise as it is now is complimentary to the expertise of USAHIL.

Maybe if the top 3 of USARS/AAU sat down with the Top 3 of USA/USAHIL; shelved their egos and their pride and started on a mutually agreeable outline to do what they do better then the other group as a compliment to what the other group does well; once they combine their experiences and their pluses and helped each other with their minuses maybe, just maybe the sport would get on the right track and grow.

If not, we will have Narch, PIHA, MLRH for the elite and the older players and nothing for the younger players. Because there will be no younger players to learn and strive to compete in all the other tournaments we now have: AAU, USAHIL, TORHS, 6 Pac, TopCat, 2 Hot 4 Ice, Coastal Cup, etc.

AAU has experienced explosive growth in the JO's every year; the Disney Classic on Memorial Day weekend has sold out the last 3 or 4 years. USAHIL is happy to get 85-100 teams at their Nationals and few of them could even compete at Narch Silver level. Why not let AAU run the tournaments of the combined group with the agreement that their will be one combined insurance program and all tournaments will accept it, as well as all leagues, NGB's and others.

Let us hope the powers of each group can bury the hatchet in the ground (not in each other's skulls) and work together or my 3 year old will be done playing before he could even tryout for a TEAM USA team at age 9. This sport will not last in its current form for more than 5 more years. Sad but true.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by schlzout on 10/31/05 07:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>