Some sports have vague histories that date back centuries to bygone eras. Roller hockey (interchangeably referred to as inline hockey), is not one of them.

Roller skates were invented in 1760. Once the rules of ice hockey were formalized, people started playing the sport on awkward quad skates with a ball (instead of flat puck). However, it wasn’t until the late-1980s/early-1990s that skate technology progressed enough to accurately replicate the speed and maneuverability of ice hockey on dry land. Once the tech came around, a perfect storm of events occurred to make roller hockey one of the most popular sports in the 90s, and then to regress almost as fast as it arose. For a sport so young, it sure has been a wild ride.