"When you play roller hockey, you always want to keep playing roller hockey."
This is what Max Muller, current president of the UCLA Club Roller Hockey, expressed about the sport. Max has been playing roller hockey since he was five years old and just took over as the club's president this year. While the club sport itself is only one year old, it provides a great opportunity for people to continue playing the sport at the collegiate level.
"In roller hockey, it is a tight knit community," Max said. "We know who played roller hockey before, and if want to play roller hockey, we give people avenues to find us. Because if you play roller hockey, you're going to want to keep playing roller hockey."
The UCLA team is very committed to the sport, commuting an hour away to the roller rink in West Covina to practice. Max said that logistics for practice times and frequency are still to be determined this year, but that he is looking to get the team together to practice once a week.
Unlike ice hockey, roller hockey does not require as many players. Rather than its ice counterpart which normally has teams of 20 or more, only eight players are needed for a roller hockey team.
"You get very close on a team like this," Max said of the small team. "You have to go to San Jose, Irvine, San Diego – you practice as a team and you bond."
Aside from the team bonding that UCLA roller hockey has given him, Max said that participating in this club sport has allowed him to grow and mature personally. As a goalie, Max used to blame himself for when his team lost. However his ongoing participation in the sport has allowed him to realize to take responsibility for only the things he can control.
"It makes you mature," Max said. "You really have to get over the fact that you are going to lose some, and you are going to win. Taking responsibility for things that happen, and also recognizing that it's also a team effort and not blaming it all on you."
While roller hockey is a more recently developed club sport at UCLA, it has already allowed its participants to develop strong relationships, grow personally, and even feel more connected to their campus community.
"It gives me more pride for the school," Max said. "This is my school, and I play for my school."
