East vs West

[gentdj]

Hey all,
I am working on an article for an overseas hockey magazine about the state of roller hockey in America, focusing on East vs West.
I was wondering what everyone here thinks - is West Coast hockey still better? Has the East finally grown to match up? After Lindenwood beat the Mudcats, has the Midwest now proven that they are a major power?
Just wondering as to the general sentiment out there ...
Thanks!
S

#26

[Rebecca]

Hey, great luck with your story and mag!

Please don't lose site of something though: Lindenwood is a College team playing in CRHL. This is part of the importance of this team's win over the Mudcats. If you want to do a story, you may want to consider an approach from the CRHL's perspective and what college hockey means to the industry.

Every excuse can be used at to why the Mudcats lost these games, many might be very realistic or even true. But the bottom line is the branding. A College team beats a 'prolevel team' is all that matters, not East vs. West. ECRHA selects beat the NJ Riot in October; not the same level as Mudcats but still a win branded to college roller hockey.

In the end though, it's really not supposed to be about us vs. them or college vs. pro but there seems to be this need and pressure for college hockey to prove ourselves first. Maybe soon we will begin to work together. Just seems we need some respect first by kicking some 'pro' butt.

oh and for the record, no dis meant to Naz (AKA Speed Demon) who did all he could for his team in the ECRHA-Riot game LMAO

Keep your eyes on NARCh in January is all I can say.

Rebecca

[SpeedDemon]

To add my Canadian two cents, I would say generally that the hotbeds for roller hockey in the US are California on the West Coast, and the New York/New Jersey/PA area on the East Coast. This isn't to slight any other area (Virginia, Missouri, and others have some great youth organizations that corral some top-level talent), I'm just indicating that it seems like these regions produce the largest number of competitive teams consistently.

California still seems to dominate the national scene for roller, but you have to think of it this way. Much of the American talent for ice hockey is produced from the Northeast. Many roller hockey organizations throughout the Northeast and Northern Midwest still fight with trying to keep a full squad rostered during ice hockey season. This isn't nearly as big a problem on the West Coast, where there's a higher percentage of committment to roller hockey.

I was impressed to see Lindenwood beat the Mudcats. I won't be the one to make excuses for CJ and company, but if Lindenwood can do it again I'll be thoroughly convinced.

... and Rebecca is right. Against the Selects, I could not have filled those water bottles any faster damnit.

[NuHusky]

I don't think you can really have an article that pits soley the East vs. West. I think it has to be the West versus everybody else. Look at the results from this past year at Narch, Cali dominated Atoms through Bantams, and where they didn't win they were usually second or third. There is no doubt about it that the west is the dominate location for roller hockey and everyone else is playing catch up now.
From the OC Blades to Anaheim Bulldogs to CPH, to the Pama Cyclones(armadillos) to the Tour Predators those are the teams to beat. However there are some strong programs in certain regions, i.e,; NY/NJ/PA area Mission Empire Snipers, Det/MI area Detroit Mission Hyper Stars, midwest has some strong teams too. But only in Cali you will find a number of dominate teams who are in the hunt year after year.
I would rethink the article a little bit before you write, although you could find enough people to the stir the pot in an East vs West argument. Just my .02 cents

[slapshot09]

Lindenwood beat the Mudcats twice, 2-1 and 8-4 in the finals I think.

[DannyG]

I have been a player, coach, league administrator of roller hockey in Texas since 1987. I offer the following observations...

California roller hockey is the standard, as it has been for a decade...regardless of which pro or college level team might be on top at any point, where the kids, and therefore the players come from is California. As we move through this decade, and select players and programs continue to develop in Texas, Florida, Michigan/Wisconsin/Illinois, NY/NJ/PA, and such, there indeed will be players of high level come from these places. You should see what Loiusiana teams have done to the development curve over the past five years.

Please also note that the recreation player development is just as important in assessing the State-of-the-Union as is the elite player/program. California is just incredible in sheer numbers of players who either as kids or adults have taken up roller hockey as their Life Sport.

There is now a generation of kids in the age 16-23 year old age range. These kids have played for 10-12 years, they have played competitive level for 5-7 years, they have received some decent level of tactical coaching for 3-4 years. and, unlike their big brothers in the 23-29 year old range, who started out on ice, these new kids have essentially never played ice; strictly wheels. (that's an exageration, of course, almost every high level player dabbles in ice play once in a while) But these kids are roller players, they are not ice players. Except for programs like The Cooler Selects, which make their roller players play ice as well (they get two fees out of 'em), the blue floor is the only surface these kids play on, and they play differently then you and I, who grew up on ice.

The recent USA Hockey Junior National team program has recognized this, and four of the junior players were assigned to the senior team for the IIHF worlds this past summer. This trend will continue.

The USAHIL coaches also note that, in the California regional camp, there was probably an entire second team of players who could have made the squads of the other three regional camps. To make the California (The West) regional select squad was just that tough.

In summary, for the next decade, you will see quality players and programs all over the country reach a parity, but California will continue to be at the forefront, primarily because of the numbers of players they generate.

[Drexel63]

So what are these conditions, or excuses people are talking about with the Lindenwood/Mudcats games??? are people saying the mudcats didnt have all of their top guys? was it their 6th game in one day? what's the deal here?

I'd like a ton more info on this game if anyone has it...

-Bill Sherwood
Drexel Univ. Roller Hockey

[koz10]

I play on LU and the first game was intense. They had everyone but jamie yoder. I don't think they were ready for the game. We put a couple in and they were trying to force the issue the rest of the game and they got their goal with 5 seconds left in the game. The second game their goalie Leggit and defenseman allan from canada had to leave early so they had to play a backup goalie. We got some soft goals but overall they did not outplay us at all. We had the puck the majority of the time. It was just two great roller hockey games. I think it opened some eyes, Chad seibel said that he only lost one game with the mudcats in a year and a half(to hyper in the narch pro finals) and then they come out and lose two in a weekend. As for the excuses, just the second game they could have had excuses. We were the team that had two college games that weekend and half our team played juniors in the tournament as well as playing gold.

[SpeedDemon]

I didn't mean to slight the accomplishment and imply that there were excuses to be made. It's certainly an exciting thing to beat a premiere team in the nation. All I was saying is that you do it once and you will turn some heads, but if you do it again in a major tournament then I think people will really be convinced.

[Drexel63]

Actually my post was more in reply to Rebecca's statement:
"Every excuse can be used at to why the Mudcats lost these games, many might be very realistic or even true. But the bottom line is the branding."

I just wanted some more info on the game, who was there, who wasn't, and exactly what she was referring to... Thanks koz...

Hey Rebecca, do we have room for one more at the hotel? I've been getting thirsty quite easily lately and it seems Naz is qualified enough to help...

[Benny_Gulakiw]

Why does it seem, lately, that almost every thread in almost every forum on this message board (and the CRHL message board, too) ends up with someone either bitching about or defending Lindenwood? This thread started out with someone requesting information about a pretty general topic concerning roller hockey and up pops Lindenwood. There're a great, stacked team. I get it. Can we move on and have a discussion that doesn't end up involving Lindenwood? I'm surprise that the thread about stinky rinks didn't involve Lindenwood. Something like, "Lindenwood is such a great team, their locker-room never stinks."

Just my two-cents.

Benny Gulakiw
President
Inline Hockey America

[missionhockey21]

Yeah I totally agree. They need to make a love/hate lindenwood message board so they can keep the topic there

[John_S_Osborne]

Let's see if Lindenwood somehow pops into the "How to get the funk out of my equipment" thread then we can safely classify this theory as law. As a computer science major, I can mathematically summarize our hypothesis in the following sentence: "Over the lifetime of any given messageboard thread, the mathematical probability of any given message mentioning Lindenwood converges to 1."

- john

[missionhockey21]

I guess we can now call the Lindenwood theory a law

[gentdj]

My bad. I started it by including Lindenwood in post at the top. It was just meant to spark some midwest guys saying how great they are compared to the east. Thats pretty much it ... lol
Still, as someone who helped get intercollegiate roller hockey moving and organized out here (helped, I in no way take any credit - that all goes to Huck and Brendan), I'm pretty damn impressed when a college squad can beat a pro team. It lends credibility to what we have been doing ... that's all ...

#26