​The National Roller Hockey League (NRHL), established in 2014, is a professional roller hockey league that showcased some of Michigan’s greatest roller hockey players talents. Although it has not grown passed the state of Michigan, it has released some great players such as Corey Hodge, Ryan Perry, CJ Cromie and Jonny Smith, just to name a few.

​In the most recent season in the NRHL, teams have had trouble paying rinks for rink time as well as the league as a whole going into debt, but the NRHL is back and stronger than ever. The first team that was introduced for the 2019 season is the Detroit Dragons, based out of the new Fraiser Arena in Michigan. A roster has not been released yet but upcoming free agent camps will be available in early 2019. The league will be expanding and hopes to spread outside of Michigan to other states. Robert Clouston, co-founder of the NRHL, plans to have 5-8 teams in the league for its first season back, with the initial season fee for each new franchise being $50,000.

​I asked former NRHL player, Corey Hodge, about the league, and he thought the league was managed well, “the people who ran it were great and very respectful of the players.” Hodge was especially pleased with the promotion of the sport of roller hockey. People today are asking about the NRHL and are interested on trying out in these upcoming camps. I also asked him about the pay and how that works for the NRHL. After each game players are given an envelope with their pay for that game and they were always good with paying players, even though Corey’s team had problems in the past. “I think Clouston (Co-Founder of the NRHL) and the NRHL are a great opportunity for the sport of roller hockey to move forward to something more for this sport. It’s something I believe it truly needs” says Hodge.