On a Roll : Orange County Becomes Hotbed of Roller Hockey

There’s something wrong with this Orange County picture . . .

Huntington Beach, Surf City. With the sun beating down on a breezy afternoon, there is one group of kids that isn’t working the waves or the beach volleyball nets. They’re working on slap shots.

Coto de Caza, land of golf courses, health spas and country clubs. Kellee Booth, a junior amateur champion golfer, grew up on these fairways with her five-iron. Now, 5-year-olds glide around neighborhood rinks with hockey sticks.

Then there’s Irvine, home of Little League World Series finalists. Here, kids usually use their mitts to snag fly balls. But at the Irvine Hockey Club, they use their gloves to catch pucks.

Orange County has roller hockey fever.

“I can’t keep track of how many new skating rinks keep going up here,” said Brad McCaughey, assistant coach of the Bullfrogs, Anaheim’s professional roller hockey team. “They’re sprouting up like crazy.”

You want crazy? Consider this:

In December, Huntington Beach became the first unofficial major division roller hockey champion at the high school level, defeating Edison in the California Street Hockey Assn. Division I championship game at The Pond of Anaheim.

High school roller hockey champion?

Although the event isn’t officially sanctioned by the Southern Section, the participants, coaches and fans weren’t fazed or discouraged.

“It’s going to be a high school sport eventually,” said Danon Beres, a senior on the Huntington Beach team. “We just won’t be here.”

Although there is not much argument that roller hockey is growing quickly in this area--according to American Sports Data, Inc., in-line skating is the fastest growing recreational activity in the nation--the sport that has high popularity among its participants lacks only publicity and legitimacy.

“There will always be an infant stage for a new sport,” said Grant Sonier, Bullfrog coach and the team’s director of hockey operations. “We will experience growing pains and there will always be detractors and pessimists.

“But I think we have more believers than disbelievers in this sport.”

Meet Bob Bolen, a surfer turned roller hockey coach.

You can find him on skates these days, running practices for the Huntington Beach hockey club. Bolen, a local celebrity known as “The Greek,” used to run his own surfboard shop. Now he owns Huntington Beach Realty.

“Roller hockey now kind of reminds me of baseball in the early days,” Bolen said, “when people would go out to sandlots, anywhere, to play. We need a practice rink but we make do with what we have.”

Bolen has a talented group of players, led by senior Carl Helber, a member of the Anaheim Junior Ducks tier 1 midget team. Helber was the CSHA’s Division I MVP and teammate Justin Paras, a senior, was the division’s top-rated goalie.

But this top-flight talent works out on a makeshift rink. The team holds most of its practices on the asphalt basketball courts at Worthy Park, adjacent to the athletic fields at Huntington Beach High.

“People at school don’t even know we have a roller hockey team,” Beres said.

Roller hockey optimists hope those attitudes and public interest will change. There is growing support to get roller hockey officially sanctioned by the section. But it won’t be easy.

According to Bill Clark, the Southern Section’s assistant commissioner, the section first must be formally asked to perform a feasibility study for a new sport.

“We have not received a proposal regarding roller hockey,” Clark said. “I know there have been discussions, but we haven’t received anything official.”

State Commissioner Tom Byrnes also is aware of the expanding interest in roller hockey, but like Clark, said the state office has not been contacted officially.

Although there are numerous bureaucratic hurdles for roller hockey to clear, perhaps its biggest obstacle is economics.

Roller hockey equipment is not cheap. The total equipment package for an individual--including skates, pads, helmet, jersey, pants and hockey stick--can range from approximately $200 to $600, depending upon the quality.

Although new rinks are being constructed throughout the county, the least expensive ones still cost between $20,000 and $80,000 to build, said Mike Muckenthaler, the high school league director of the California Street Hockey Assn.

“Facilities will be the most pressing need for roller hockey,” Los Alamitos Athletic Director John Barnes said. “And look at the financial situation for most of the school districts. If it makes it (as a high school sport), I think it’s a ways off yet.”

Even if the sport gained approval from the section and the state, Clark said Southern Section championships would not be guaranteed.

For example, if the sport was already sanctioned, 20% of the section’s total school membership this year--98 schools--would have to form roller hockey teams to have an official section championship.

Said Byrnes: “I know we haven’t adopted a brand new sport in the 20-something years I’ve been here. The sport has to be widespread, something that develops across the state.

“But it has to start somewhere.”

*

Garden Grove is a good place to begin. That’s the home of the California Street Hockey Assn., which plays its games at the Garden Grove Sports Complex.

The league is separated into three divisions with Division I as the top level. The teams play a 10-game schedule followed by playoffs and the Division I and II championship games scheduled to be played at The Pond in June, Muckenthaler said.

“We have 40 teams signed up right now from 34 different high schools in the county,” Muckenthaler said. “We’re almost halfway there.”

Muckenthaler said the sport has a better chance to gain sanctioning if he can round up 100 schools.

“I think we’ll have that by this time next year,” Muckenthaler said.

Although the majority of the teams come from the higher socioeconomic areas, Muckenthaler said Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Santiago and Pacifica also have had teams in the high school league.

“The kids supply their own equipment and we help them with fund-raising to get the entry fee for the league,” he said. “Some teams have sponsors, so that helps.”

The entry fee for CSHA, a non-profit organization, is $750 per team. The league provides the pucks, the facility and the officials.

Enjoyment of the game is what attracted Kent Fitch to roller hockey. He watched his grandsons play roller hockey in the streets and wanted to find a better place for them to play.

Fitch, a former contractor, became the owner of the Coto Valley Country Club in June and began renovations, converting existing facilities into skating rinks.

“I wanted to give kids a safe environment to play roller hockey,” Fitch said. “I always thought, how many country clubs are targeted at families? That’s what I wanted to create here.

“We started this roller hockey season during baseball season, but enrollment still grew by 20% although Little League started at the same time.

“I think it’s so much more fun than Little League. The kids don’t sit on the bench long and with two-minute line changes, they are constantly playing.”

Jeff Buma is the manager at the Irvine Hockey Club, where people skate in two state-of-the-art indoor hockey rinks. More than 900 players--ages 4 to adult--participate in leagues at the facility, but Buma credits it all to one person.

“It all began with Gretzky,” Buma said. “When Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Kings, all of a sudden, sellout crowds are showing up to watch him. Next thing you know, kids are skating in parking lots, carrying hockey sticks.”

Spurred by Gretzky’s arrival in 1988 and the Mighty Ducks’ inaugural season in 1993-94, professional roller hockey arrived with the Bullfrogs at The Pond in the summer of 1993.

“The hockey boom, the new arena, a lot of factors helped us out that first season,” McCaughey said. “And the fans fell in love with the game.”

Said Buma: “This sport is here to stay. It’s definitely not a fad. If you look at indoor soccer, arena football, there’s no way to compare it. Kids can’t play those easily.

“Roller hockey is a sport everyone can play in the street. Kids can emulate the pros and relate to what the pros do. They’re not thinking ‘I want to be an ice hockey player.’ They want to become a Bullfrogs player.”

So where does roller hockey go from here?

In terms of public awareness, the Bullfrogs, Los Angeles Blades and San Diego Barracudas and their league are the centerpieces for Southern California.

Sonier feels they are moving in the right direction.

“A year ago, only a few people had heard about the Bullfrogs,” Sonier said. “I’m finding out that more and more, everywhere we go, Brad and myself are being recognized. And it’s not just us, but more people know about the Bullfrogs.

“Last year when we averaged nearly 10,000 fans a game, that was a real eye-opener.”

The sport appears to be heading in the right direction. Wild optimism has high school roller hockey arriving in California in one or two years.

“It could be as soon as six years or take as long as 15,” McCaughey said. “Growing as fast as it is, when is it going to plateau, or will it? You can’t give a good estimate because there are too many things to consider.”

But there is one thing on which everyone agrees.

“Roller hockey is on its way,” Muckenthaler said. “It’s spreading like wildfire.”