On Introspection

Obviously recent comments have provoked much thought on my part. I stand by everything I said because it is true. Blunt, perhaps a little brutal but brutally honest.

The sad fact is inline speed skating in North America is a dying sport. Turn out at Duluth declined this year, manufacturers and retailers are pulling out as fast as you can say clearance sale. Even skate clubs are contracting, or disappearing, remember the Cambridge club?

Now we can hide our collective head in the sand on the big issues and rant about whatever it was that so irritated "anonymous", (ironically much as this years presidential election seems to revolve around lipstick - we can also point fingers and call each other names) or we can grow up and start by acknowledging there is a very serious problem with the sport.

I spent years training (I skated for a long time before I joined a club) - yes there was blood and sweat, though not so many tears, and I spent more than a small fortune on inline skating and I really do not have much to show for it. I am angry at the industry for appalling customer service, I am angry at race officials for turning a blind eye to cheating and I am angry at the community writ large for being willing to put up with all that crap. I am angry and I am not willing to take it anymore. What is the point of trying when the best I could ever hope to achieve will be to wear the same skate boots as the winner of the next North Shore Inline Marathon?

There are good people in the sport, heck the overwhelming majority are good and decent people, but that does not matter. Ultimately my perspective is, this is not a serious sport and should not be taken seriously until the stakeholders take it seriously. Now I am a 'retired' inline skater and I actually know a lot of the major players here in North America, not on a first name basis but I know or know of them, to simply dismiss me as a "whiner" is the prerogative of the reader, but remember any new skater (the way to grow a sport) will discover, with time, the same things I have and quit. Now ask yourself how will the sport be served best?

The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.

-Junius