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Southern Cali sports legends give Bako pucksters a boost!
Topics: roller hockey, roller hockey training, LA Kings, Bakersfield, Noveltown, Bakotopia, Hockey, sports
Posted by thenovelist Tue May 22, 2007 18:27:17 PDT
Viewed 316 times
0 responses 0 comments Roller hockey in Bakersfield has been on life support for some time. Bob Neath and a handful of others, including the travel team, Team Mower have literally kept the sport breathing over at the 34th Street facility, Rollerama.

In the mid-1990s you could find roller hockey almost anywhere in Bakersfield. It began in garages and on street corners and eventually took over tennis courts on Wilson Road and at Jastro Park. There were even pick-up games in the lot of a Mormon church on Panorama Drive and Fairfax Roads. Roller hockey had infected the masses. Jastro and Calloway Parks eventually built small rinks. Eventually there were sanctioned leagues at Standard Park (Until the league owner ran away with the money), and then the popular Niles rink in the old East Hills Bowling Alley (Many people said the rink was haunted. It's now a marketplace).

Some attribute the surge in Central Valley Roller Hockey to the popularity of the LA Kings as they marketed their team to a Bakersfield audience. Others think it had something to do with minor league ice hockey farm teams like the Bakersfield Oilers and the Bakersfield Fog. Both played at the Civic Auditorium and energized the youth and adults to want to put on skates and grab a hockey stick.

I remember professional minor leaguer Mike Butters coming out to the pick-up games at Jastro Park. I was in high heaven when he once called me “tenacious”. Did that mean I was annoying and like a gnat after the puck? I can only hope so.

Butters could literally stand yards away from a goal and say, “My shot only counts if I hit the post.” He would call the post before he show and you’d soon hear a plink as he scored.

Only it was a roller ball back then. Not a puck. Then came glow-in-the-dark balls for late night hockey action. Then roller pucks were popular. You couldn’t hardly shoot those without breaking them. Then more standard roller pucks came into play. They tend to break in cold weather.

Yet, the good people of Bakersfield haven’t been playing roller hockey much for several years.

That’s about to change.

Just a few days ago, Dianne Hoover of the City of Bakersfield was joined by people like Bob Neath, Former Condors player Glen Mears, the LA Kings Fan Development Division, and a host of roller hockey supporters, all on hand to celebrate the new roller hockey park going in at Saunders Park.

(Read the full article)
(Then look at this great deal for an LA Kings Inline Hockey Camp!)
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