World Inline Hockey Championships... Is it Worth Mentioning?
by Bruce Peter on Jul 2, 2010 7:03 PM EDT
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PrintWell, I'm going to at least mention that there is a hockey-ish international tournament going on right now in Karlstad, Sweden (in the home rink of the Färjestads BK of the Elitseren). It's the Inline Hockey World Championships, and it's sanctioned by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Inline Hockey is the reason there are South American members of the IIHF... Brazil, Argentina and Chile have no recorded ice hockey international games that I'm aware of, but they are associate members of the IIHF because they do have inline clubs, and the IIHF decided to take control of that discipline of hockey as well.
The IIHF Inline Hockey World Championships is interesting in the sense that it takes care of both the top division and the lower Division 1 level at the same time... and teams can move about from one division to the other after the qualification round is over. So it has a unique format that I think would work really well at the ice hockey IIHF tournaments, but to be honest I know nothing of the world of inline hockey and can't really comment on whether this format works for the discipline or not. All I know about inline hockey is this: it's four quarters rather than three periods, and some ice hockey players use it as summer training. Apparently Swedish forward Dick Axelsson, a Detroit Red Wings prospect, is good enough at Inline to play for Sweden, and is actually the tournament leader in points. Sweden is currently in the semifinals, and Rickard Wallin also appears to be a prominent member of their team.
The semifinal matchups look like a typical IIHF semifinal group: Canada vs. USA, and Sweden vs. Czech Republic. Slovakia, Finland, Germany and Slovenia were knocked out in the quarterfinals. It's a bit different hockey world, as Russia doesn't have a team even in Division 1, and Canada is ranked 7th in the world. The junior level is a bit more interesting: the FIRS Jr. Men Championships had teams from Colombia, Namibia and Mexico. Colombia isn't a member of the IIHF at all, so until that happens they can't send a team to the IIHF Championships.
I have no idea if this can ever be a stepping stone to developing the kind of hockey that involves a puck and ice in these countries, or if the IIHF's involvement in the sport is a good thing or not, so I don't know if it's worth my time to be mentioning the tournament's proceedings. But hey, it's out there, and now you know about it. Should Puck Worlds bother with it at all in the future?
For results of the Championships, visit the IIHF's home page.
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I recall that last year, some NHLers played in this tourney. I can’t remember who though but they talked about it at the Olympics…. maybe Halak or Hossa? I think it was a Slovak though. In any case…. thanks for posting… curious to see if the Czechs beat Sweden. Canada lost 12-2 to the USA who seem to be whalloping everyone!
I have no idea if this can ever be a stepping stone to developing the kind of hockey that involves a puck and ice in these countries, or if the IIHF’s involvement in the sport is a good thing or not…
well, i can’t speak for everywhere, but in taiwan inline hockey has been a major contributor to the development of ice hockey, particularly on the institutional level. inline is, obviously, the easier form of hockey to play in a country with only one rink, and it’s a long-established, serious sport. except for expats, ice hockey teams are usually put together by inline skating clubs, and they’re the ones promoting the sport and doing most of the player training and development. virtually every taiwanese ice hockey player starts out as an inline player, even though there are more and more kids now who focus on ice hockey exclusively.
so yeah, inline can definitely be a stepping stone to ice hockey, and the iihf’s involvement is (in my view) certainly a good thing. that said, inline is a remarkably different game stylistically and strategically. it’s played four-on-four, positions are less clearly defined, there’s no neutral zone and much less passing. it’s kind of a cycle-the-puck-and-whoever-sees-an-opening-makes-a-rush game. a talented inline hockey player can make the physical adaptations to playing on ice surprisingly quickly, but his ‘hockey sense’ will be completely different.
Joe Mullen
Isn’t this where he learned to be an NHL’er?
Inline hockey
Hardly anyone of us hockeyfans in Sweden knows about inline hockey, only a few outside of Karlstad knows that there is a world championship going on in our country.
However, apart from Axelsson and Wallin there´s not unusuall for SEL stars to play inline hockey, several of them played in the national championship, and since the manager of team Sweden recently said that real hockeyplayers is great to have on the team because of their streingth, stamina and speed I thought there would be more of SEL players on the team, maybe even some NHL/AHLplayer. I was wrong, but team Sweden seems to do ok anyway.
Sorry about eventually bad english, I´m Swede after all…
Would you like to see the inlines WC live so go to :
http://www.swehockey.se/Startsidesnyheter/2010/Juni-2010/Inline-WC-2010-goes-live/
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