Roller Hockey Players realize that penalties can hurt their team and sometimes cause them to lose games. Are there ways to avoid them? Or are they simply part of the Roller Hockey game? The first approach to avoiding a bad penalty is to understand what one is. There are two types of penalties: Bad penalties and stupid penalties. 

A bad penalty is any penalty against the guy who doesn't have the puck. Another is anytime you take a penalty around the opposition's net, which is in your offensive zone. That's a bad penalty because the other guy still has to go 200 feet to get a chance to score. 

In Roller Hockey, fighting is not only bad, it's stupid. If you instigate a fight, you get a penalty. If you continue to fight, you get ejected from the game. And what does that mean for your team? You've put your whole team in jeopardy of losing.

 Fatigue and laziness can also lead to bad penalties. Some players take penalties because they're just lazy or brain dead. If players get lazy, instead of hustling and taking those two extra strides, they decide to use their stick, usually to hook or grab hold of a guy. And if a player stays on the court too long, their legs get tired and start to burn and then their brain goes dead and they take a penalty. One way to avoid this type of penalty is to change lines as often as possible, this way; you'll not only be physically sharp but mentally sharp as well.

Avoiding a penalty anytime in Roller Hockey is important, but especially at the start or end of a game. Taking a penalty in the first three minutes and the last three minutes of a game is very bad because two minutes in proportion to a 48 minute game is a long time and time management is very important in roller hockey and if you don't use that time well, it will use you.

An exception to the rule is that not all penalties are bad. Under certain circumstances, a penalty can boost your team's moral and save a goal from being scored. For example, it's near the end of the championship game and you need to hook the opposing team's star player on a breakout because nine out of ten times, he will probably score. And if you've got a good penalty killing unit, then that's a good penalty.

In closing, you need to have penalties. There's not a game in the world that can survive without rules and Penalties. And there will always be players who get penalties. That's just the competitiveness in the player.

Now go out there and win some Roller Hockey games!