What outdoor sports would translate best into an "indoor" version?

The Game Room
1

This thread made me think of this:

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=886030

One poster correctly brought up that American football is meant to be played on a large field, and while my lone Arena Football experience was entertaining, I always thought this was a flawed sport, and would be like playing basketball or hockey on a 100 yard x 50 yard football field. So with all due respect to its fans and athletes, I always thought Arena football was always a misguided attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the NFL and big time college football.

I’ve watched on TV indoor soccer and indoor “Box” lacrosse and they on the other hand translate very well as indoor sports. Maybe with the same success/lack thereof of Arena football but they always seemed to make more sense that football in a hockey rink.

What other outdoor sports could be compressed into a NHL hockey rink?

My ideas:

-Indoor Rugby. There already is some versions of indoor rugby and makes sense, there is no forward pass eliminating the need for the bigger field, and imagine the fun of a perimeter player being knocked into the pads during a running play?

-Indoor Polo. Horsies are already used for indoor rodeo, imagine a 3 on 3 contest in a hockey rink covered in turf? Might work!

-Hurling? Yeah another “big field” game but maybe make the goal posts really, really thin. Maybe not the best example but it would be wild!

-Tennis----yeah, pretty obvious. . . . .

I was thinking about baseball, cricket and other outdoor sports, just cant see how they would translate but open for ideas!

2

Football works quite well as an indoor sport. The fact the Arena league died is a reflection of the realities of sports business, not that there’s anything wrong with the sport itself.

3

Cricket has been played under a roof, but there aren’t many roofed stadiums big enough, and it hasn’t caught on.

4

I suspect rugby would translate badly. The ‘field’ would not be big enough to accommodate the large number of lateral passes and punting the ball away for field advantage would constantly be into the protective netting (which might be interesting I guess)

5

The outstanding example is, of course, ice hockey.

6

And curling, of course.

7

Indoor cricket has been played for decades, I played for 5-6 years back in the early 90s.
Even has a World Cup.

8

Volleyball

9

That’s already played indoors, that’s why “beach volleyball” is differentiated from regular volleyball.

That being said, you can say beach volleyball can be played indoors in a sandbox.

10

Yeah, that’s what I meant. Indoor beach volleyball.

11

Handball started as an outdoor sport, then during the 60s the indoor version took over in popularity.