Disclaimer: Herein are indisputable rolling skating facts (really, look it up). The author is not responsible for any roller skating accidents that may result from reading this.
The history of rolling skating is quite interesting, at least compared to the history of soccer. You're probably thinking that rolling skates were first known to our grandparents, but roller skates are older than the United States of America (talk about some rusty wheels). Belgian manufacturer Joseph Merlin (not associated with Camelot) produced the first roller skates in 1760. He surprised everyone at a formal London ball (that would be a "party") by rolling across the floor (like magic) on metal-wheeled skates while playing (badly, no doubt) a valuable violin. Because of the skate's minor performance limitations (so constructed as to not allow such maneuvers as turning or stopping), Merlin ran into a large mirror, seriously damaging the violin, and inflicting grievous bodily harm to various appendages, and his nose, which made first contact with the glass.
This was not only the first public exhibition of roller skating, but was also highly entertaining, and led to more skating. On the negative side, it was rolling skating's first DUI.
A more dignified demonstration of roller skating, although less visually pleasing, came in 1849 when a suave and better coordinated Frenchman, Louis Legrange (lit. "the barn"), put rollers on his ice skates (this is called "cheating") to stimulate, I mean "simulate" ice skating in the play Le Prophete. Why a prophet would be ice skating is unclear, but is a worthy subject for a dissertation or doctoral thesis.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic in 1863, while the North and South were in the middle of a little dispute called the Civil War, New Yorker James Plimpton had MORE IMPORTANT things on his mind: to make a skate that could, wow, turn AND stop. He came up with a rubber cushion (precursor of the whoopie) to anchor the axles, which allowed the skate to turn slightly, assuming the skater had not stopped off at the tavern, and was not simultaneously trying to play "Camptown Races" on the fiddle while making a cell phone call (sorry, wrong century).
Speaking of the next century, by 1901, roller skating was getting boring. As there was no war currently going on, the idea presented itself to give grown men full of testosterone big sticks with which to smartly strike one another. For variety, one could also hit a hard rubber "puck" (originally called "duck") that would fly through the air at great speeds and dent faces and knock out teeth.
Roller hockey teams were soon competing all over Europe. After another inconvenient war (WWI), the sport re-emerged. The same year Hitler and Germany hosted the 1936 Olympic Games (get ready for WWII), the first World Championships in roller hockey were held in Stuttgart, Germany, whose city motto is, "We will bomb you."
Roller hockey, reportedly, is particularly popular today in Spain, Portugal, Italy and throughout South America. The U.S. Olympic website (where I learned about messieurs Merlin, "The Barn" and Plimpton) declares that roller hockey is "second in popularity only to soccer" in South America." (Note: The closest I've been to South America is Guatemala, where I never saw anyone on skates, although some people were carrying big sticks. That roller hockey stuff must start just south of there.)
But, alas, roller hockey has finally arrived. In 1992, it was played as a "demonstration" sport at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. I missed it, but I heard it was not as entertaining as Merlin's demonstration.
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