in existence, including National Inline Hockey Association (NIHA), USA Hockey InLine, North American Roller Hockey Championships (NARCh) and American Inline Roller Hockey Series (AIRHS). USA Roller Sports, under the auspices of Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS), established and hosted the first World Inline Roller Hockey Championships for men at the Odeum Arena in Villa Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) in 1995. USA Roller Sports established the first Inline Hockey World Championships for Juniors, again in Chicago in 1996, following the USA National Championships. The first World Inline Hockey Championships for Women occurred under sponsorship of USA Roller Sports in Rochester, New York in 2002. Since the introduction of these events, FIRS National Federations around the world have annually perpetuated inline world championships. USA (Ice) Hockey and International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) began their men's InLine Hockey World Championship in 1996, after the first such world championship by FIRS and has yet to organize a women's inline hockey world tournament or one for juniors. In March 2002, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Membership and Credentials Committee officially reaffirmed that USA Roller Sports as the governing body for inline hockey in the United States, which continues to this day. This determination was based on a conclusion by the USOC that internationally the sport of inline hockey is recognized as a discipline of roller sports. Then, as now, USA Roller Sports is a member in good standing of Federation International de Roller Sports ("FIRS"), the international federation for roller sports as recognized by the International Olympic Committee, and FIRS is also recognized by the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) as the controlling international federation for inline hockey, a sport of the Pan American Games. History in Europe For training purposes especially for hockey players, inline skates were produced in small quantities by several companies which were in fact modified ice skates, one of them was the "Speedy" by SKF which was available also with hockey-wheels. This changed when mass-produced inline skates from the USA were available in the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s first leagues started. Inline roller hockey was introduced to the World Games for the first time in 2005, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned event under the jurisdiction of the International World Games Association (IWGA), an affiliate of the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). The United States won the gold medal, with Canada taking the