ABSTRACT
Roller hockey was on the schedule of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, but was not included in subsequent venues. Nevertheless, the popularity of the sport continues to grow in Europe in the form of U-20 and U-17 leagues. Research devoted to roller hockey in general and specifically among youth is scarce in the literature. Ice hockey and field hockey, in contrast, are reasonably well represented. For example, relationships among birth date, selection and competitive level were considered in adolescent ice hockey players (Sherar et al., 2007). Other studies of youth ice hockey players tend to focus on functional parameters, e.g., validation of a skating protocol to predict aerobic power in players 9–25 years (Petrella et al., 2007), validity and reliability of a maximal multistage shuttle run on-ice skate test (Leone et al., 2007). Given the lack of information on youth roller hockey players, this study profiles the body size and performance characteristics of U-17 Portuguese male youth roller hockey players.
