Friday, March 15, 2013

City Council leaves Papatoetoe RSC from New Zealand without Rink

The greatest Roller Hockey Club from New Zealand will not have Rink to play

One of the last matches at the NZ Roller Hockey Cathedral
Council force the successful community based sporting clubs - Papatoetoe Roller Sports Club, Sabres Inline Hockey Club and Auckland Roller Derby League - to look elsewhere for the future. 
Since 1963 The Papatoetoe Roller Sports Club has been operating in Wallace Road Papatoetoe.
The building is used every night of the week and most weekends, by more than three clubs and the public. The Papatoetoe Roller Sports Club is the most successful Roller Hockey Club in NZ History and also is the current holder of the NZ Club Champions Trophy. 
The local community board is going to use the buildings current location as a new road to allow 
access to more apartment and housing developments planned in the near future. The Clubs 
have not seen any plans and are unaware of the timeline suggested, although they have been 
told that the building must come down in May 2013.
With no other participating groups for these community minded sports in the South Auckland 
district, the council’s decision to move the groups away from this site makes finding a new 
venue extremely hard for all. And to make the blow even harder, they are removing genuine 
success from the area.
Image of the Rink
Going further down, this decision by the Council will put an unnecessary strain on the national association, as all the clubs affected by the demolition of this purpose built facility are at the top of their disciplines. 
The sporting arena has housed many teams and clubs at all levels but the forgotten users are 
the all-important kids and families from the local community. They will fare the worst from this decision, as the weekly ritual of going down to the (rink) for a skate, or going to learn to skate classes held on Wednesdays will no longer be available.
For all the thousands of local community users that have access to this building for more than fifty years - not only recreational and competitive skating, but other functions as well – the 
question arises “where too from now?”
The Council has not presented any relocation options for the Clubs or offered any financial 
assistance, even though the building is owned by the Papatoetoe Roller Sports Club. These 
Clubs are now being forced to look outside of their home community as they attempt to find a 
suitable facility, which will be a near impossible task given that the building requirement of 
more than 40 metres x 30 metres with no internal roof support posts, is a rare construction 
indeed.

Papatoetoe Easter Tournament 2013

The Papatoetoe Club will be holding a farewell Tournament at Easter Weekend 2013 and has asked for all those skaters that have skated their or have fond memories of the club to come down and join in on the last weekend. This tournament will be the last at the "old" rink, and will happen from 29th to 31st March.  See more details on the Facebook event.
Invitation for all interested people

 



Opinion: It's not the first time that public authorities underrate our sport, but once again even if our sport it's not one of the biggest in the World, it history, tradition and beauty deserve respect.
The World can't be made only by major sports... 

Respect for Roller Hockey

More info at: 
Papatoetoe Roller Sport Club Facebook Page
http://www.rinkhockeynz.com

Source of info (don't forget to put a "like" on this news):
http://www.scoop.co.nz
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz

Thursday, March 7, 2013

New Roller Hockey Book-"50 Minuti di Gloria"


One more bible of Roller Hockey
Since the beginning of XX century that roller hockey started to write several pages of history.
Fortunately in last years some people started to transcribe all this history to books, something that wasn't done until nowadays. After the release of the Portuguese book "Campeonatos do Mundo de Hóquei em Patins-Contributos para a sua história", written by Fernando Castro, and edited by Despertar Memórias, now it's time for an Italian book about our favorite sport.


With the title "50' Minuti di Gloria", this amazing work was written by Paolo Virdi, and editted by Lodinotizie. This great work includes 2 Books, one from 1982 to 1996, and the other from 1997 to 2012.
The first book is available since September 2012, and since 8th March 2013 the collection is complete.
Although it is written in Italian this is a fantastic present for all roller hockey lovers all over the World.
You can buy each book for 16€ more shipping costs, or all books for 32€ more shipping costs on the follow website.

It is important to notice that one of the most famous roller hockey brand, Meneghini Hockey System supported this work.
And the question now is, when and from where will come the next Roller Hockey Book???

Even if some people like to ignore our roller sport, it history is bigger than this people!!!

Let's Roll Forever!!!

More info about the book at:
50' Minuti di Gloria Website
50' Minuti di Gloria Facebook Page