It is very sad to contemplate, if ever you connected with roller skating in any manner, recreational to competitive. We were a world of fun and friendship and rare achievement in many ways. A world many of us lived in for a few hours, a few nights a week.
The rink up above, in San Ramon, Ca is one I have wanted to visit sometime. It was about the only one left in the East Bay.
Has a sport ever so drastically shrunk and withered down to mere shadow memories?
Joy on wheels may one day stand for a high point in a way of life now virtually gone.
AI, an often stupid source of information, does its own stupid spinning when asked if the sport is dying, claiming it thrives in different ways. Pure hogwash. Once upon a time, hundred of skaters, myself and partner included, competed at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in LA. And that was just the Southwest Pacific Regional meet. Today none compete in such an event.
Well, if you narrow down the question with numbers, AI can be cornered, or forced, into being more accurate. Such as this: There were once maybe dozens of roller rinks in Southern CA, why are there now almost none, AI? Give it to us straight.
"In the late 1960s, there were approximately
50 or more
roller skating rinks in the Los Angeles and Orange County area. These
venues dotted the Southern California landscape in a manner often
compared to modern-day drugstores, serving as major social hubs for
teenagers and young adults"This paints the picture of a lost world I so fondly recall.
What killed artistic/competitive roller skating? My best guess: roller blades and the ice lobby.
