The Pittsburgh Bandits were looking for hockey players. Mike Guentner was available.

He's glad he was.

Guentner joined former Butler High School ice hockey teammate Rob Ramirez for the Bandits inline hockey team's 18-under national tournament appearance in Pittsburgh this summer.

"Rob was one of my best friends in high school and he still is,"Guentner said. "He got me to play a little inline hockey locally last summer, but it was just for fun. I figured I'd never play again."

Ramirez has been playing with the Bandits for the past couple of years. Last year's team reached the Junior Olympic World Championships, but failed to place.

Some of those players moved up to the Bandits' 20-under squad this season.

"We needed six to eight players to fill out our roster for the national tournament,"Bandits coach Bob Seitz said. "Rob asked Mike to play for us and he was a welcome addition."

The team was actually comprised of mostly 16-under players. The team bumped up to the 18-under tournament because it missed competing at the 16-under level.

"We grabbed a couple of 17-year-olds, went ahead and played,"Bandits 16-under coach Joe Catena of Cranberry Township said.

Catena's son, Justin, plays on the 16-under squad and is in his second year with the Bandits organization.

Joe Catena coaches inline hockey at Seneca Valley and is president of the school's inline hockey association.

"There's a huge program there, with 80 to 100 kids playing each year,"Catena said.

With Guentner on the squad, the Bandits rolled to the gold medal at the United States Roller Hockey Association national event, thus qualifying for a return trip to the world championships.

"You have to finish first or second at a national event to qualify,"Seitz said.

"I was into it,"Guentner said of inline hockey. "It turned out to be great off-season training for me."

The Bandits wound up third at the championships, held in Taylor, Mich. A team from New Jersey won the gold while a Louisiana squad captured the silver.

There were teams from Great Britain, Australia and Hong Kong competing as well.

Guentner, Catena and teammate Steve Baker of Peters Township were named 2006 All-American Junior Olympic players at the event. Only eight other players in the tournament received that honor.

"One thing I realized from this tournament was that Americans play a grittier style of hockey,"Guentner said. "Great Britain didn't work the corners as hard as we did and that's why we beat them."

Unlike ice hockey, inline hockey uses four skaters at a time and there is no checking, offsides or icing.

"It comes down to skating. Speed is everything,"Seitz said. "The faster teams have a huge advantage. But if you don't play as a team, you get beat.

"It's like a basketball game on skates. You pretty much want to play keep away with the puck until the opening is there, then you move in for the score."

Guentner only played with the Bandits in the national and world tournaments. The team played in five other tournaments, finishing among the top three teams in most of them.

The organization has already had tryouts for next season.

"Most of these guys have been playing together for a while,"Seitz said.

"The games were pretty fast-paced,"Guentner said. "But my first priority will always be ice hockey."

A defenseman during his high school playing days, Guentner is entering his sophomore year at Western Michigan University — where he was moved to the No. 1 line late last season.

"I wound up scoring a bunch of goals and now I'm playing offense," Guentner said.

Western Michigan is a Division I member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA).

"NCAA hockey only has maybe 55 teams,"Guentner said. "The ACHA is very underrated. We were 20th in the nation last year in an extremely competitive division."

The fourth annual ACHA Showcase — a tournament involving the organization's best teams nationally — will be held at The Ice Zone in Youngstown, Ohio at the end of September.