399: Roller Hockey International’s San Jose Rhinos - With Brad Porteus

2025-06-16

What do you get when you mix Gen X slacker spirit, a startup sports league on wheels, and a 25-year-old Deadhead-turned-front office exec? Welcome to the wild world of Roller Hockey International (RHI) — and the improbable story of the San Jose Rhinos. Brad Porteus, former GM of the Rhinos and author of the rollicking new memoir "Roll With It: A Trip Back to the '90s - Gen X Style," joins us to unpack one of the most absurd, glorious, and ultimately short-lived chapters in modern American pro sports history. RHI burst onto th...

What do you get when you mix Gen X slacker spirit, a startup sports league on wheels, and a 25-year-old Deadhead-turned-front office exec? Welcome to the wild world of Roller Hockey International (RHI) — and the improbable story of the San Jose Rhinos.

Brad Porteus, former GM of the Rhinos and author of the rollicking new memoir "Roll With It: A Trip Back to the '90s - Gen X Style," joins us to unpack one of the most absurd, glorious, and ultimately short-lived chapters in modern American pro sports history.

RHI burst onto the scene in the early 1990s during the inline skating craze, promising a legit summer hockey league full of high-speed thrills and low-rent spectacle. What it delivered was equal parts innovation and chaos.

Porteus was there from the beginning — drafting players who could barely skate; marketing a new team, league and sport on a shoestring budget; and helping San Jose win an unlikely Murphy Cup championship in only its second season (1995).

But Roll With It is about more than sports. It’s also a love letter to the analog '90s, a memoir of coming of age in an ascendant Silicon Valley, and a tribute to the resilient, underdog ethos of Generation X. Porteus brings us into a time before social media, when careers were launched on little more than a mixtape, a road map, and the blind faith that you could figure it out.

+ + +

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable
"Good Seats" Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/good-seats-still-avalable?ref_id=35106

BUY THE BOOK (AND SUPPORT THE SHOW!):

"Roll With It: A Trip Back to the '90s - Gen X Style": https://amzn.to/4kEUKyT

SPONSOR THANKS (AND SUPPORT THE SHOW!):

Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats
Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.503-sports.com?aff=2
Old Fort Baseball Co. (15% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://www.oldfortbaseballco.com/?ref=seats
Yinzylvania (20% off promo code: GOODSEATSSTILLAVAILABLE): https://yinzylvania.com/GOODSEATSSTILLAVAILABLE
417 Helmets (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://417helmets.com/?wpam_id=3