Team Illinois roller hockey club to compete in national tournament
On the surface, the little group of second- and third-graders looked and talked and skated like hockey players.
But the surface was missing. Instead, they were on a synthetic roller hockey court parked outdoors behind a building in Fon du Lac Park on a summer evening when temps reached 86 degrees.
All these players, born in 2005, are believed to be the only roller hockey team in downstate Illinois in their age group.
They are headed Friday to Darien, where they will play in State Wars 9 — a national championship roller hockey tournament at Sportsplex.
Team Illinois is comprised of central Illinois grade schoolers Connor Davis, Jack Cusmano, Parks Taylor, Jack Gedraitis, Jaxson McQueary and Wyatt Duke, plus a goalie from the Chicago area.
They play Michigan at 10:40 a.m. and Southern California at 6:40 p.m. on Friday. Then they face Wisconsin at 11:20 a.m. and an All-Star entry at 3:20 p.m. Saturday before seed play begins.
By winter, these kids played for former Rivermen defenseman Luke Gruden’s Mite travel team in the Peoria Youth Hockey Association.
By summer, they play for coach Jimmy Taylor, a Eureka native with a passion for the roller game.
“I grew up playing roller hockey,” said Taylor, 32, who is a supervisor at UPS and also works in the service department at Grimm Chevrolet. “This group here played hockey all winter and this is a way for them to stay active and be involved in a similar game.”
State Wars 9 is part of the Roller Hockey Alliance. The game is played on a regulation ice hockey rink, but each team is allowed only four skaters plus a goaltender.
Penalties — and power plays — and most of the rules and equipment echo ice hockey.
There are 18 divisions in State Wars 9, set up by age groups or skill levels, from age 6 all the way up to adults and pro hockey players jumping into the action.
“This is harder than (ice) hockey,” said the coach’s son, Parks Taylor, 7, a second-grader in Eureka. “You can’t stop as easy as you can on ice.”
Teammate Duke nodded in agreement. “You get hurt more,” said the third-grader at Hickory Grove Elementary School in Dunlap. “But the game is a lot of fun to play.”
They are one-of-a-kind in central Illinois. So they practice twice a week and play pickup games against older kids.
“Kids who start off in ice hockey have a harder time adjusting to roller hockey,” said Jimmy Taylor, who has coached hockey in the PYHA. “There is lesser equipment, no offsides, so play is less positional. But it seems to help when they go back from roller hockey to ice hockey. There are NHL players who have played roller hockey.
“I know roller hockey is not a really popular sport yet. There’s just not a lot of teams around.
“I’d like to change that.”
Dave Eminian covers the Rivermen for the Journal Star. Reach at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.
