i played a lot of roller hockey growing up, started play some ice in college. played in a men's league and then some pickup. a couple years ago i stumbled on a roller hockey game on the hill. there was a pretty varied mix of skill levels. then we started advertising on meetup.com (look for capitol hill inline league) and the skill level has started to skew higher, but is still pretty varied.
basically play sunday mornings, no longer on the hill. there are a couple rinks in MD off 295. all the details are on that website.
i like ice hockey better, but am starting to prefer the roller hockey experience. get to play outside. if it is cold, you can kind of pretend it is pond hockey. no crazy hours. tomorrow should be nice (30's and sunny).
we usually have two full lines and goalies. even with the high skill level, it is very friendly. wide range of ages. most people are at least 30. maybe some are even 60. so its not like there are punk kids playing.
due to the fact it is ball hockey, the skill level is higher than the A/B league I've played in. its just easier to play with a ball
its not even a league. no fees. just show up. really cant be beat
I've played inline hockey as well over the years. It's a blast to play, but I'm much better on ice skates for some reason. They have several leagues around where I live for inline hockey. It's a big deal in Martinsburg, WV and Winchester, VA. I know Martinsburg has two rinks that were built by the parks and rec, while Winchester has an indoor rink for inline hockey. Both cities have thriving youth leagues. I started playing inline hockey back in the 90s. It was a just show up and play type thing. They started up adult leagues in Martinsburg and Winchester shortly after that. The only problem that I had with the inline hockey leagues was that they were not set up very well. The talent gap between teams was really bad. I know that a team from Pennsylvania that was sponsored by Sheetz used to come down and play in the West Virginia and Virginia leagues. They were allowed to remain intact and not have to go through the draft process like the other teams. That's fine for tournament play, but it doesn't work well for league play.
