Sunday, June 19, 2011

Roller Hockey a World Sport

Who told you that Roller Hockey is/was played just in a few countries?

This is a question that will be answer today, and will prove that is a total mistake.
During the last century and even now Roller Hockey is crossing some better moments and other times worse moments.
As all Roller Hockey fans knows our sport was part of Olympic Games in 1992, in Barcelona. This was the greatest moment of Roller Hockey, and was the struggle of one man that allow this, Juan Antonio Samaranch "just" the president of  the International Olympic Committee at that time.

But the main goal of this article is to prove that Roller Hockey, since the last 60 years, was played all over the World.
Most of people doesn't imagine that next countries presented in the list, had already played roller hockey in history.
So these are the countries where roller hockey was played some years ago, and nowadays there isn't any news that still it is played:

Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Cuba, Sweden, Slovenia, Russia, China, Scotland, Norway, Hungary, Guatemala, South Korea, North Korea, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Porto Rico, Cuba, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) and Slovenia.

Are you surprised, wonder, curious????

It is true all these 23 countries played in International Competitions as you can see on the next list of World Cup's, and other Continental Competitions:

1982 World Cup: Canada, Ireland, Guatemala, Venezuela
1958 World Cup: Denmark
1956 World Cup: Norway
1955 World Cup: Yugoslavia, Norway, Ireland, Denmark
1953 World Cup: Denmark, Ireland
1952 World Cup: Denmark
1951 World Cup: Denmark, Ireland
2004 B World Cup:   China  
2002 B World Cup:   South Korea 
2000 B World Cup: Canada,  South Korea
1998 B World Cup: Canada, China, North Korea

1994 B World Cup: Canada
1992 B World Cup: Canada
1990 B World Cup: Venezuela, Cuba, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong,China
1988 B World Cup: Venezuela, Ecuador, Canada
1986 B World Cup: Costa Rica
1984 B World Cup: Ireland 

1987 Asian Cup: South Korea, Hong Kong
1991 Asian Cup: South Korea, Hong Kong, China
1991 Asian Cup: South Korea,  China

1995 Pan American Cup: Canada

(Source of all Championships Information: http://www.rink-hockey.net/busca/busca-competicoes.php?  and http://cerh.eu/main.php?action=main-rankingseniors)

Next you can see some photos of Irish, Swedish, and Canadian Teams.
Photo Of Irish National Team in a World Cup (source: http://www.rollerhockeyireland.com/)
Veberöd RHC, extinguish Swedish Team (source: http://elwood.tripod.com)

Canada Women's Team (source: http://www.whockey.com)
To note that on the edition of B World Cup before Olympic Games (1990) there were a record of countries, 22!!! Unhappily our sport didn't guarantee it permanence to next edition of Olympics and the interest of these countries for the sport decreased...

All the Roller Hockey international organisms like FIRS and CIRH should increase the promotion of the sport using new technologies, and call again all these countries to play on of the most beautiful sports of our World.
We need to see countries like China, Canada, Russia... to play our sport.
If somebody from these countries wants to do it and need help all roller hockey lovers are available to help, and of course can be other new countries.   

I expect with this article to make everybody see that our sport was, and is a global sport, but of course doesn't have the power of others.

We should effort to put the World Rolling again our Sport!!!!!!

6 comments:

  1. Rollerhockey is still played in Ireland. Have a look at www.rollerhockeyireland.com

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    Replies
    1. Hi redolous, I am a Spaniard moving to Ireland in a month and would very much like if roller hockey is still active there. Any update will be very much appreciated.

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  2. Hello dear redoulous. I know about this website and that you still play roller hockey :). I meant "Who told you that Roller Hockey is/was played just in a few countries?" in the title. Are you the webmaster of the website?Can we share some information about the Irish roller hockey project? Great thanks for your answer.Your feedback is very important

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  3. I thought that roller hockey was again death in Ireland because there was not an update of the website since Saturday, 02 May 2009 http://www.rollerhockeyireland.com/index.php/news.html

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  4. Hello Xaral,
    I am very glad to see your blog and have enjoyed reading your posts. This post in particular is well articulated and shares a vision that I believe is growing: We need to continue to organize and work together, with each other, to promote the sport worldwide. Thank you so much for your contributions and lets stay in touch!

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  5. Hey hardballhockey
    Great thanks for your words.
    I'm also sure that, if everybody get together defending our sport, in some years it will be different and it will exist in more sports.

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