Any Way They Can : Young Hockey Players Who Lack Ice Time Get Rolling in Lomita

Robert Feil grew up in Manhattan Beach, known more for sun and surf than for ice-skating rinks. Yet Feil, now 21, developed a passion for hockey as a teen-ager. When he couldn’t get much time on the ice to play his favorite sport, he took to the streets with a pair of roller skates and a broken stick he conned out of the Los Angeles Kings.

Playing time is difficult for any youth to find in ice-starved Southern California, and when Tom Peffer created the South Bay Roller Hockey League at Lomita Recreation Park, he did so with the idea of taking players like Feil off the streets.

Peffer, who owns skating supply stores in Culver City, Harbor City and Lomita, watched roller hockey grow so fast in the 1980s that he was constantly fielding requests from young customers for information on roller hockey leagues. To his surprise, Peffer found none, so he took matters into his own hands.

“I’d have so many kids ask me where they could play,” he said. “They needed a place to play. They wanted a league with stats. No one had organized a thing like that before.”

Hockey purists may find the “rink” (a converted basketball court) at Lomita Park an abominable place to play, but most of the players say that in balmy Southern California you take your hockey any way you can get it.

The league has grown so large that city officials have undertaken a study to determine what to do with Peffer’s burgeoning enterprise. Currently, he operates under a gentlemen’s agreement with city officials, who seem to like the fact that he is offering youths an alternative to street play.

Said City Manager Walker Ritter: “Any program that puts young people . . . off the street in a supervised program is worth looking into. That’s what we are here for.”

The city could incorporate the hockey league into its regular recreation program, require Peffer to get a permit or halt play altogether. A decision should come around the middle of May, Ritter said.

“This started (small), but it has gotten to the point where it’s more than just a couple of kids playing there now,” he said. “We are studying it.”

Peffer, who contends that he is offering a community service, is going ahead with plans for his spring leagues. He is expanding to offer a six-team youth league for the first time, and, because many of his young customers in the early 1980s are now in their early 20s, his adult program has grown to 12 teams. Both leagues are scheduled to start April 22.

Last week, Peffer was busy at work at the park, helping to install new boards and seal cracks in the concrete of the converted basketball court.

“We are upgrading the park,” Peffer said. “Our work is free to the park. It’s a benefit to the community, and we are happy to do it.”

Park Director Jerry Summers said the city often accepts free services for Lomita Park. He said Peffer’s contribution will help “alleviate hazardous conditions” at the playing facility, which at 60 by 120 feet measures smaller than a standard ice rink.

Roller hockey is popular, said Peffer, because it is far less costly than ice hockey.

“My intentions were to keep kids off the streets, and to do that you have to keep the cost down,” he said. A complete ice hockey outfit and league fees run about $1,200 a year, he said, while his youth league costs each player about $80 a year.

Peffer said about 60% of the young players in the league will be local residents. A team of ice hockey players from the Bay-Harbor Ice Arena is expected to enter, he said.

For the adult league, Peffer charges $50 per player per season. He has taken out an insurance policy against injuries in both leagues. Each team, limited to 10 players, must supply its own uniforms.

Most of the rules of ice hockey apply to roller hockey, but instead of a puck, the league uses a frozen rubber ball. (Last Sunday a swift wrist shot sent the ball over the 10-foot fence that encloses the playing surface.) Players are not allowed to advance the ball in their hands, but, because it is so bouncy, they often block the ball with their gloved palms.

Players wear roller skates or the more advanced roller blades, which resemble ice skates but have a single row of wheels instead of a blade. Goalies are allowed to wear tennis shoes and a baseball glove on their non-stick hand. Only five players are allowed on the surface at any time, one less than in ice hockey.

Peffer has had little trouble attracting teams. They come from as far away as the San Fernando Valley. Last week, the captain of a team from Beverly Hills was at the park checking out the action.

“There just isn’t enough ice time available, and it is costly,” explained Feil, who now lives in Hermosa Beach. “This is just a way to enjoy playing hockey, and it is fun.”

Feil’s team, the Beach City Bruins, faces off at 11 a.m. today against the South Bay Blackhawks in the fifth and deciding game of the winter championship series. It has been as spirited a series as anyone could expect in ice hockey. Two weeks ago the Blackhawks won the first two games, but last Sunday the Bruins fought back to tie the series at 2-2.

Ironically, most of the Bruins have never played ice hockey, said Feil, who scored several goals with some neat stick handling last Sunday. He began playing street hockey in tennis shoes when he was 14 and graduated to roller skates as his interest grew.

“Only two guys out of 10 on our team ever tried ice hockey,” said Feil, “and that (experience) was pretty limited.”

On any given Sunday during league play, the action is quick, said Steve Trudnowski, the league’s promoter. The smaller dimensions and makeshift conditions of the rink challenge participants to stay on their skates. A hip check here could grind you into a chain-link fence. Bodies hit the concrete regularly in the fight for the ball. Goalies have been knocked through the tiny, portable nets they attempt to protect.

But judging by the size of last weekend’s crowd, roller hockey has found a hub in Lomita. More than 100 people lined the court, many putting up folding chairs in the adjacent parking lot to get a good look at the action.

“This really isn’t a good turnout,” said Trudnowski. “When we have eight or nine teams playing during the regular (season), this place is packed.”

Loyal spectators are fixtures here. Said Herb Kosmen of Lomita: “This is the best entertainment in town. You can’t find another sport with this much action.”

Trudnowski and Puffer hired Kosmen to enclose the court with boards and fill in the cracks. Last Thursday he could be seen scurrying around the facility directing a work crew. Summers was there, observing for the city. The erection of boards around the former basketball court has taken away some of the rink’s charm, but it will certainly do away with the dangers of a chain-link check.

If the city agrees to let the league continue playing at Lomita Park, Peffer has offered to maintain the court. He pointed out that the pair of rusty, bent, netless basketball hoops that hang over the goalie boxes have not been maintained by the city for years.

During the playoffs last week, some of the fans really got into the action. When a player missed a slap shot, one disgusted follower bellowed: “Come on, guys. Play the ball!”

It didn’t sound anything like hockey terminology, but, then, this is Southern California, where fanatics take their hockey any way they can get it.