Greg,
You're sort of all over the map with this response. My original point is that
lack of rinks means less players are produced in an area.
It's been my experience that the interest in the Northeast is huge among kids,
but there's no outlet. Unless, for whatever reason, you go out of your way to
get involved, most won't. But many, many kids play in the street or on blades.
In my neighborhood, I see many more kids on roller blades than playing any
other sport.
> Also, the date in Adam's post is 1988, but I was specifically talking about
> a spate of rinks built in the late 70's/early 80's, which were summarily
> remodeled (lack of interest, First Reagan Term Recession Fires, Les
> Islanders transformation into Night of the Skating Dead, etc...)
I don't think the Islanders have much to do with it now. They still stink, and
new rinks are being built quickly.
> In my neck of the woods (well, it being L.I., my No Outlet of the
> Subdivision) we all skated, had access to ponds, rinks (though there wasn't
> much league ice time), etc., but nobody played anything approaching
> organized hockey. Although there were a few scattered leagues, it was a
> rarity to hear any reference to kids under 16 playing in them. There were
> NO adult leagues, parents didn't know a puck from... whatever, etc.
> Whenever you heard about anybody playing in a league, it was invariably in
> Queens, Brooklyn, or *maybe* Nassau County. The local businesses didn't
> sponsor teams. The bars had every kind of team known to man -- they even
> had rugby games -- but no hockey.
This pretty much typifies my point. No one played then because there wasn't as
much interest in ice hockey, but more importantly, no rinks. Hockey became
very popular in my generation, but street hockey was a lot easier to do, so
that's all we did. We didn't even attempt to find a rink to play on.
> > Here's another fact. My junior year of high school, the high school
club
> >hockey team won the Long Island championships for the first time. It was
the
> >first time a parochial school didn't win it. They went upstate for the
state
> >tournament and were smoked.
>
> I hadn't even *heard* of H.S. hockey until I arrived in Ithaca. There's no
> way the percentage of L.I. High schools with a hockey team (let alone a
> facility) approaches that of Boston. Perhaps not even by a factor of ten.
Who said it did? But most large LI high schools have teams. They aren't
sanctioned by the schools, yet, however, because their seasons last too long
(though I think it's really the money). I did a story about this while writing
for the HS paper, and got in trouble for slamming the football program.
> > In Philly, the situations are similar -- but what they're really
lacking
> >now is quality coaches. That's another problem altogether.
>
> It's related to the fact that kids don't turn into players alone -- they
> need parents and coaches willing to put up with / help them with their
> magnificent obsession. In Boston, hockey is in the air ("is that what that
> is?"); on L.I., it isn't even on the airwaves.
>
> Hey, don't get me wrong, I love the game and hope it flourishes someday
> among the sand dunes and shopping malls of my birthplace. But I think its
> chances of doing so are, approximately, zippo. Just my .02.
It's happening now -- go sniff the air on Long Island. The Metro Junior B
league has three Long Island teams, one of which is dominant. Chris Warner
says Long Island is starting to produce more players. The Metro League didn't
even exist just 8 years ago. Similar things around Philly, where there are 2
teams in that league, and the Jr. Flyers have about 2 players going to good
schools each year (after going to prep school of course).
Adam Wodon - AC Productions
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