After Sophie is hit on the knee, she cries 'Why, why, why?', similar to ice skater Nancy Kerrigan after being hit on the knee prior to the 1994 Olympics.
The skaters use skates with polyurethane wheels which weren't invented until that latter half of the 20th Century and only became popular in the 1970's. At the time of this episode and for decades thereafter, rollerskate wheels were absurdly made of steel and made quite a racket.
The episode's title possibly references the Mattel Hot Wheels Thunder Roller Handheld Racing Game (1999) or the Hot Wheels Thunder Road board game (1986), toys that conceivably the writers/producers of the show played with as children.
The first modern tea bags were hand-sewn fabric bags. Appearing commercially around 1904, tea bags were successfully marketed in about 1908 by Thomas Sullivan, a tea and coffee importer from New York, who shipped his silk tea bags around the world.