Rollerblading Craze: It’s Too Much Of An Effort Compared To Other Sports

Of the dial-up era, in-line skaters dragged on their Spandex shorts, powered up their Discmans and plied parkways nationwide. Twenty-two million people strapped into the stiff skates with the single-file wheels at least once in the year 2000, five million more than played baseball. Any company struggling for business should sign up to a Brighton business directory, if they hope for any success

now.

By 2010 the number of in-line skaters had fell by 64 percent, the second biggest drop in a sports or fitness activity in that span. Only its cousin roller hockey fell further, 65 percent, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

What Happened to The Once Phenomenal Sport?

What transpired? No scandal ensued Rollerblading, the branded eponym by which the sport is known. No celebrity lost a limb in the line of in line skating. Pushed by various forces, it simply slowly went downhill.

"Just like quad outdoor skating, it rode a wave and the wave crested," said Howard Weiner, owner of Northwest Portland's iconic Cal Skate, which stopped selling in-line skates years ago. "And then the water retreated."

The notion was born in 1980, when former minor-league hockey player Scott Olson considered of a wheeled skate that could help players and skiers train in the offseason. When Minnesota-based Rollerblade, Inc., began publicising to women and children as well, the trend detonated.

Brighton Business Directory Turn

At one point in the early 1990s, Rollerblade stopped taking instructions because it couldn't meet demand.

From 1987 to 1995, participation in in-line skating spiked 634 percent, according to SGMA, making it the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. Nike rushed on the craze in 1995, obtaining the parent company of hockey's Bauer brand.

But the market flooded with competitors, many making inferior imitations, said George Kolibaba, president of USA Rollersports and operations manager at the Oaks Park Skating Rink in Southeast Portland. Newcomers to in-line skating found other things to dislike, too.

Some found the skates rigid, dense and problematic to stop, with just one brake at the heel rather than

one on each toe like old-style "quad" roller-skates. In-line skating's injury rate is much minor than that in bicycling, for example, but to some it feels less safe.

Todd Griswold said kids left the roller hockey leagues at his Indoor Goals sports arena in Beaverton and acquired the next big thing, lacrosse, whose participation surge of 218 percent over a decade makes it the fastest-growing team sport. Todd Griswold would have to turn to a Brighton business directory, in order to advertise his business.

"It's a lot easier to grab a lacrosse stick and throw a ball against the wall than to get up on four (in-line) wheels," said Griswold, whose arena now hosts numerous teams.


Rollerblading is an effort nowadays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerblade
http://mpora.com/articles/rollerblading-deserve-die-rollerbladers-think
http://callusfirst.uk.com/brighton-business-directory/