Messier got to town the night before the game, but neither player had skated since the World Cup.

When a player is skating fast, they can come to a quick stop by performing an advanced inline-skating move called the powerslide.

The whistle blew and the young players skated over to face their coach, hesitant to make eye contact.

Campbell said that his players "were skating in quicksand" for the first part of the game and that "we didn't play with emotion" until later.

Compounding the issue two other Trashers' players left the penalty box and skated towards the bench.

The start of the game was delayed after the national anthem while players skated about aimlessly for two minutes until the network was ready.

The younger players, in their early 30's, skate hard enough to make the old-timers sweat.

There was some good news: the other four players skated today, and help is on the way.

Play was halted 15 times so that the fog could be dispersed (by having players from both teams skate around the rink).

We don't want our fans to pay to see 40 players skate around with pulled groins.