Summertime may have meant baseball in my younger years and golf in my older years but winter always meant one thing: HOCKEY! I mean come on I'm Canadian. I spent much of my time traveling around the province of Alberta, going to hockey tournaments. When I wasn't practicing or playing organized hockey we would often get a game of "shinny" (pick-up hockey) going at the local outdoor rink or even by shoveling off a frozen pond at someone's family farm. In the summer when other sports just wouldn't cut it we would get a game of road hockey going within the neighborhood. Having moved to the US the thing I missed most was hockey. There just wasn't the same amount of interest from people my age to get a game going. Recently I found a cure to my craving. This last year I have been playing in a roller hockey league once a week. This was fairly new to me. Although we often rollerbladed back home to stay in shape during the offseason or to have a good time and get some ice cream on a date, we never played roller hockey. There was no need. There was always plenty of ice available in the winter and the summer was either spent on other sports or playing the odd game of road hockey.
I am still getting the hang of roller hockey. I'm still a very good skater and good at handling the puck but I still haven't figured out stopping on wheels. They say you're supposed to mimic a hockey stop but although I manage to turn my skates perpendicular to my direction of motion I still don't seem to stop. When I started shopping for rollerblades I wasn't expecting it to be too hard. I spent my whole life buying hockey skates how could it be much different. Boy was I wrong!
The boot of a roller hockey skate is nearly identical to an ice skate. The frame is pretty simple as well. It is generally made out of carbon fiber, extruded aluminum, or magnesium. It gets complicated when you get to the wheels and bearings. When I first bought m rollerblades they were fitted with outdoor wheels (I didn't know this at the time). They are made of a hard plastic that is meant to withstand the rigors of the uneven asphalt that you skate on. When I began playing in an indoor arena my skates did not perform very well. The outdoor wheels are too hard to grip the relatively smooth tile surface of an indoor rink. I set out to learn as much as I could in a short period of time about indoor wheels.
The first thing about roller wheels is the setup. The simplest of setups is 4 wheels all of the same size. However more advanced skaters will often manipulate the sizes of the wheels in order to increase performance. Sometimes the front and back wheels are slightly smaller than the middle two in order to imitate the curved surface of an ice skate blade. Another setup, and the one that I chose, gradually decreases the size of the wheels from front to back. This setup allows the weight of the skater to be pushed forward increasing speed and acceleration. These different setups can often increase maneuverability but decreases stability at high speeds. The other disadvantage to these setups is that you must purchase each wheel individually and not in sets making them much more costly.
The indoor wheels are comprised of polyurethane. The inner layer of the wheel is fairly soft, while the outer layer is harder. The combination of the two allows the wheel to deform slightly and grip the tile floor while the harder outer layer increases durability so that the wheels do not need to be changed very often. The combination of plastics needed to construct the indoor wheel also make them considerably more expensive than outdoor wheels. For my full setup of indoor wheels I payed roughly $80, a fairly steep amount to pay considering the skates only cost around $130. With my indoor wheels I have much more control and have grown to enjoy the game much more. If you plan on buying rollerblades and perhaps playing some roller hockey I suggest educating yourself on wheels and setups and tailoring them both to your specific needs.
Sean
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