Ice skating

  The ice season under way, which means a lot of the top inliners trade their wheels for blades and get ready for the Olympic Games which is less than 2 years away.  It's cool to see some inliners qualifying for world cups and getting so much recognition.  But then at the same time it's depressing to realize that the top athletes in our sport get so much more coverage because they've become ice skaters.  I'm biased, but I really do think inline is a lot more exciting than ice, no disrespect but that's just my personal opinion.  And I bet if you showed people who had never seen either sport, and asked them to choose which was more exciting, a lot would chose inline.  At this point it's pretty obvious that inline skaters are just as good athletes as ice skaters, so why doesn't our sport get more attention??? There's way more inliners world wide than Ice skaters... In the end it really boils down to the Olympics, I guess(so c'mon 2020).  

  I do like that trend is becoming more and more for skaters to do an ice season and an inline season.  It's good to see Bart, Ewen, Michel, Alexis, Ferre, Marty, and a lot more doing both very successfully.  Hopefully that caries over to the US guys, b/c we've been WRECKED by the ice world.  I think in the last 10 years we've had over 20 world team members switch to ice, and never come back.  20 in 10 years!!!! That's 2 per year.  So, on average every year for the last 10 years, 2 of our top skaters decided to leave inlines to chase Olympic gold.... that sucks.  And i'm not blaming them individually, you have to do what's best for you.  But for inline, OUCH.  I tend to believe that if inline was Olympic, then that number might be slightly lower.  So, it's simple, lets just get in the Olympic games.... that's easy right??


   This blog went completely off course.  I was planning on writing a congrats to all the inliners that are doing so well on ice(especially to Heather Richardson who skated on the same inline club as me and won the 1000m at the first world cup...woohoo)but then I meandered slightly.  Although I am frustrated that ice gets so much more attention than inline, I do wish all of the inliners the best and hope you win everything,............ and make millions and millions of dollars, and become super famous, and then tell everyone that inlines should be a sport in the Olympic Games(thanks guys, hope that's not too much pressure)