AAU - Hockey

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Release: Huntington Beach, California

Action, drama and technology at the AAU Junior Olympic Games for Inline Hockey and FIRS Inline Hockey World Championships in Orange County, California.

The AAU Junior Olympic Games for Inline Hockey, FIRS World Youth Cup and the FIRS World Championships held in Southern California definitely had a strong international presence with 25 countries in attendance from July 7-21. Athletes, coaches, officials and fans came from all seven continents as the USA, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, India, Germany, Namibia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Czech Republic, Great Britain, and many others.

The Hilton Anaheim, the Honda Center and The RINKS – Huntington Beach, The RINKS – Irvine, and The Rinks in Corona were host to over 1300 games and international practices.

The combined tournament (AAAU Junior Olympic Games for Inline Hockey and FIRS Inline Hockey World Championships) featured a total of 435 teams (380 AAU, 55 FIRS). The AAU Junior Olympic Games for Inline Hockey, FIRS World Youth Cup and the FIRS World Championships were held in Southern California definitely had a strong international presence with 25 countries in attendance from July 7-21. Athletes, coaches, officials and fans came from all seven continents as the USA, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, India, Germany, Namibia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Czech Republic, Great Britain, and many others competed.

USA Roller Sports, (NGB) National Governing Body for Roller Sports in the USA and the AAU Grass Roots organization sanctioned the USARS-AAU youth Junior Olympic Divisions. FIRS-CIRILH sanctioned the 2013 FIRS World Championships. The Championships were hosted by the (NHL) Anaheim Ducks organization, AAU Hockey and Team USA Hockey Club.

“This year’s World Championships were the largest in FIRS history,” “55 national teams represented 25 countries at the Senior Men, Senior Women, Junior Men & Junior Women’s Divisions” stated Keith Noll, USARS Hockey Committee member, AAU National Hockey Chair, and FIRS-CIRILH Hockey Executive Committee member, Noll indicated that the first Official FIRS World Championships were held in 1995 in Chicago, Illinois.

The task of keeping the team signups, game results and statistics from all those teams fell to RSportz, a company whose software was utilized by both the AAU and FIRS.

Eduardo “Eddy” Rojas was in charge of technical support for RSportz.

“I helped make all four schedules for the FIRS World Inline Hockey Championships. I registered the teams into the system, entered all the rosters, and once everything was ready, I gave a short presentation at the FIRS opening meeting, where I basically explained what RSportz does,” Rojas said. “I’m the person that’s physically at all of the events making sure that the system works, that it runs fine, incorporating feedback from everybody and answering any questions they might have.

”Rojas said that the company’s product manager Sean Connelly designed a way to input all of the rosters that were entered online and put them into RSportz. “It worked perfectly, so the need to enter them manually wasn’t as big as it has been in the past,” Rojas said. “As a result, RSportz is continually growing, expanding, and becoming a better product.”

“This year, RSportz took AAU to a different level,” RSportz Founder Greg Argyle said. “They’ve always been pen and paper, and we got involved a few months before the event started by creating online registration. “This has been the best tournament I’ve ever attended,” Argyle added. “It’s exciting to see all of the different teams, the camaraderie, the community and all the engagement. It’s great to see the smiling faces and everybody appearing to have a great time. I’m especially pleased with the social media aspects of the software. During the period of the tournaments 24,884 uniques visited the website from 88 countries, spending on average just under 7 minutes per visit. These are exceptional numbers given there were less than 4,000 athletes in attendance.”

In senior men’s tournament action, both the USA and Canada went home disappointed, as Team USA lost in the elimination round to Team Sweden, 4-3, and Canada took too many penalties and lost the gold medal game to the 2013 FIRS World Inline Hockey champions, Team Czech Republic, 8-2. In the senior women’s division, Team USA did bring home gold, defeating Canada in the gold-medal match, 2-1, after coming back from a 1-0 deficit in the final minutes. First, a long slap shot by Joy Woog Garvey tied the game, and an overtime winner sent the USA women into a frenzied celebration.

For results and stats of the 2013 FIRS World Championships, (Men-Women,Junior Men & Junior Women), go to the website, http://www.2013firsworldchampionships.org/tourney/185

For final standings of the 2013 AAU-USARS Junior Olympics & FIRS World Youth Cup go to, www.aauhockey.org

For more information on what RSportz software platform can do for you visit www.RSportz.com or speak with Greg Argyle the CTO & Founder on 1 831 359 9518

TECHNOLOGY STARS AT ROLLER HOCKEY EVENTS