Erstellt am: 7. 5. 2009 - 17:48 Uhr
What the Puck?
The early May wind is swirling over the hard asphalt surface of a rink on the Schmelz in Vienna's 15th district, and the inline-skater hockey players of the Lunatic Hockey Team are swirling too during their Monday night practice session.
They dart forwards, backwards and side-ways around the man with the puck like wasps around a boy with a spoonful of jam..
Lunatic Hockey Team
The wheels of the players' boots seem both wider and flatter than the ones that propel me mindlessly up and down the Donauinsel, and they make a smooth humming sound as the players carve backward arcs in defence.
It’s the first time I’ve seen the sport, and it quite mesmerizing to watch.
The Lunatic's captain Stefan Visur, who is thickly wrapped up in knee, elbow and shin pads, as well as heavily-padded gloves, glides over to the side boarding and pulls of his helmet to explain the attractions of ice-hockey’s warmer nephew.
Although some some players use use the sport as a handy tool to bridge the off-season for ice hockey, Stefan explains that many of the players on the Schmelz came fresh to the sport after being hooked on informal street hockey games on the Donauinsel.
That the game is born of ice hockey is plain to see. There's the same intoxicating mixture of frenetic pace, physical courage and subtle passing combinations.
But there are some important differences: the rink is smaller and so are the teams, with 4 players and a goal-keeper instead of ice hockey's 5. The off-side rules are more relaxed. The 'puck' is a hard rubber ball.
Lunatic Hockey Team
Because in-line rollers move slightly more slowly over asphalt concrete than skates move over ice, players have to be, if anything, more skilful with their sticks than their counterparts in ice-hockey. Close possession of the ball is essential to give your team-mates time to get into position for a pass.
Yet with the tighter playing surface the game actually appears, to me at least, faster than the winter game, with the action moving from end to end every few seconds.
Safety concerns mean that checking is not allowed. But size and power still matter, explains Mathias Jeschko, who towers over me. You can't use your body as weapon, but, as in soccer, you can use your frame to guard or steal the ball from your opponents: "It's still a contact sport," he says evenly. I look up at the good fellow and decide to stick to spectating.
Indeed as I watch the practice match unfold several players hit the deck, victims of over-ambituous pirouettes or the shoulder power of opponents. Typical injuries shouldn't extend behond the odd scrape and graze from the hard surface, although Stefan points out that, with the swift direction changes involved, it is quite easy to twist a knee.
Lunatic Hockey Team
However, should you be brave enough to take up the challenge, it is apparently possible to pick up the game in a relatively short amount of time. Stefan tells of players competing in the hobby leagues just months after taking up the sport.
At a higher level, there is an Austrian Bundesliga with teams dotted from Vienna to Vorarlberg, although the sport is at its strongest in the Eastern and central urban areas of the country. The Lunatic Hockey Team are currently poised Manchester Cityesque in the mid-table scrummage.
Austria even hosted a European Championships in the event in Stegersbach last October, with the Lunatics supplying a player, Florian Birke. The national team finished in a very respectable 5th place. No medal, perhaps, but at least they kept their dignity, unlike this frat-house chump.
There is something relaxed and friendly about minority sports, however bone-crushing the action looks. That's what drew me to the world of Austrian touch rugby and free skiing and that's the atmosphere I found on the Schmelz. The winter is over. Long live hockey!