Jaime Daniels has plenty of hockey experience. The meteorologist from North Laurel played while growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., and knows the game well. So at age 42, Daniels knew that a shift had gone bad on him in an adult in-line hockey game last Sunday.

Daniels, a skillful skater, fell several times during this turn on the rink in Alpha Ridge Park in Marriottsville. Back on the bench, one of his team's younger players waited with advice.

"'Dad, you've got to stay on your skates a little more," said his son Brandon, 15.

Fathers and sons playing together is not uncommon in this Howard County league because adults and children compete together.

The adult league has grown quickly since its start four years ago with games now played on a new rink, barely a year old, at Alpha Ridge during the fall, spring and summer seasons.

Darin Segal was a driving force in the Howard County in-line program when it began in 1996. An ice hockey player throughout his life, Segal badly wanted to find a place to play in Howard County.

Segal and a group of friends often played at Ellicott City's Burleigh Manor Middle School - on the blacktop because they had nowhere else to go. And that's something he wanted to change.

"It was kind of an idea that everyone had," Segal said.

Segal also said that he, the county's Department of Recreation and Parks and the owners of the Play It Again sports equipment store in Ellicott City combined to get in-line hockey started in 1996.

At first, only about 30 kids and two staff members (including Segal) took part. Interest grew quickly, fast enough that the county built a small rink at Alpha Ridge, converting a tennis court.

But adults began expressing interest, along with older kids. That's why they began a league for ninth-graders up to and including adults in 1998. The idea took off right away. Now a dozen teams, with up to 12 players each, compete in the adult league.

"[In 1998], I had a lot of kids that were in the program for some years, but once they hit ninth grade, they had nowhere to go," said Segal, who has worked with the programs in some form since the beginning. "So basically [we] just extended it."

Segal said that this league has had at least 10 teams from the start. They've had players as old as 55 and as young as 14. Andy Lett, the sports coordinator from Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks, said that the expansion was a good move.

"We were becoming limited to the amount of people we were able to have," Lett said. "We were running out of space."

Then, as the adult league's popularity grew, the county started discussing adding space.

The new $300,000 rink was built and opened in September, Segal noted, giving the adults and younger players a different place to play.

The rink has a smooth concrete surface with regular hockey boards, two benches, penalty boxes and a chain-link fence and bleachers.

The converted tennis court still is used from time to time - when the rains come, it dries faster. But the new rink has been popular from the beginning.

The adult league is in the middle of single-elimination playoffs scheduled to end this month, having finished an eight-game regular season. Games are played Sunday afternoons.

"It's a good, competitive Sunday league," Segal said. "[People] have to realize that it's a gentleman's game, and if they're going to take it too seriously, then they shouldn't come back."

The league affords a unique mix of adults and youngsters - and fathers and sons.

Jaime Daniels plays defense most of the time while his son, an Atholton High School sophomore, works on offense. For Jaime, one of his sweetest moments came the first time he set up Brandon for a goal.

"That was just great," Jaime said. "It was just perfect."

Brandon loves playing with his father - this fall, it's on the Red team - and he said that Jaime can definitely still do the job.

"I was a little surprised, because it had been awhile since he'd played," Brandon said. "But he's pretty able to hack it with other people."

Jim and Tom Miller of Ellicott City are another father-son pairing. Tom, 14, a Mount Hebron High School freshman, enjoys playing with adults and was not intimidated by the older players.

"It's fun, it's good," Tom said. "I like having him on my team."

Jim Miller said he keeps an eye out for his son, but Tom becomes just another player when they're together on the playing floor. In fact, Tom won't hesitate to tweak his dad. In a recent game, Jim got knocked down and was rolling around for a moment when Tom skated up.

"'I was still down," Jim said with a laugh, "and he asked me if I had broken my hip."