DEHRADUN – It’s not the first place you think of when you think of “ice” or “hockey” – but the United Arab Emirates is coming along quite nicely in developing both players and facilities. The UAE has another strong team at this year’s IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia, in Dehradun, India. IIHF.com takes a closer look at the development of hockey in this amazing country. Paul Romanuk reports

A very old civilisation, but new in the ice hockey world, India has come a long way in the last few years. In this two-part report, IIHF.com talks to an Indian ice hockey historian in Part I about where the game has its’ roots and, in the second part of the report, we speak with the General Secretary of the Ice Hockey Association of India about where it expects to go in the next few years. Paul Romanuk reports

IIHF Video – A very old civilisation, but new in the ice hockey world, India has come a long way in the last few years. In this two-part report, IIHF.com talks to an Indian ice hockey historian about where the game has its’ roots and where it expects to go in the next few years. Paul Romanuk reports#!

Interesting Ice Hockey History Done in Animation – Cool Images

International Ice Hockey Federation & Slovak Television Presents 100 Years of International Ice Hockey – PART 4 – Great International Highlights

International Ice Hockey Federation & Slovak Television Presents 100 Years of International Ice Hockey – PART 3 – Great International Highlights

International Ice Hockey Federation & Slovak Television Presents 100 Years of International Ice Hockey – PART 2 – Great International Highlights

International Ice Hockey Federation & Slovak Television Presents 100 Years of International Ice Hockey – PART 1 is about the Early Years of the Game from 1870s – Great Early Ice Hockey Footage

Finnish Ice Hockey History

Finland was one of the last European traditional winter sport nations to embrace the game of ice hockey. Up until the late 1920’s only bandy was played on Finnish ice. Played by teams of 11 on large ice fields in open air, bandy was developed in England as a winter version of field hockey and came to Finland via Russia and Sweden around the turn of the century. Confusingly, bandy was also often called “ice hockey” in Europe in these early years.

Canadian-style ice hockey gained a foothold in Central Europe in the first decade of the 20th century. The International Ice Hockey Federation (originally called Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, LIHG) was founded in 1908. The first European Championship tournament was played in 1910 and won by Great Britain. Sweden was also quick to adopt the new game, finishing fourth at the first Olympic ice hockey tournament in Antwerp 1920.

Ice hockey was finally introduced in Finland in the winter of 1927 by Yrjö Salminen and Walter Jakobsson, chairmen of the Finnish Skating Association. Speed and figure skaters had long competed for ice with bandy players, and the skating leaders wanted to promote an alternative game which would take less ice space. The Skating Association adopted ice hockey officially in 1927, but in a countermove so did the Finnish Ball Association, the ruling organ for bandy in Finland.
The first year of ice hockey in Finland was overshadowed by rivalry between the two associations. The Skating Association was first to publish the rules of the game in Finnish, and also became Finland’s official representative in the international federation LIHG. The Ball Association organized the first national championship hockey tournament in 1928 and also set up a national team made of bandy players to face a visiting team from Sweden. Played in Helsinki on 29 January 1928, the game ended predictably in an 8–1 defeat for the hosts. It stands in the statistics as the first official international match of the Finnish national ice hockey team.

Happily, the feud did not last long. On 29 January 1929 both associations agreed to relinquish their claims over ice hockey and jointly created a new independent organization, the Finnish Ice Hockey Association.

It took twenty more years for ice hockey to challenge bandy as the most popular winter team sport in Finland. By the 1950’s hockey was able to offer better facilities for players and spectators. The first artificial ice rink in Finland was built in Tampere in 1956. The final breakthrough came when hockey moved indoors. The first indoor ice arena in the country was opened in Tampere in 1965 just in time to host the first World Ice Hockey Championships held in Finland.

Ice hockey benefitted strongly from social changes that took place in Finland in the late 1960’s. The country urbanized rapidly, and youths in the growing cities were eager to play team sports. In most other countries they took up football, but in Finland they turned to ice hockey. The popularity of the game soared in the 1970’s. Elite hockey teams developed into business ventures and the best players became professional athletes.

The Finnish national hockey team, known as the Lions, took a long road to success. Finland lost all its games and finished 13th out of 14 in its first ever World Championship tournament in Basel, Switzerland in 1939. The Olympic debut in Oslo 1952 was a little better, yielding a seventh place.

By the 1960’s Finland had climbed to sixth in international rankings but made little more progress in the next 30 years. Victories over any of the big five were celebrated as milestones. The USA was defeated at major championships for the first time in 1963, Sweden was first held to a draw in 1965, Czechoslovakia was beaten in 1967 and Canada vanquished in 1968. Only the Soviet Union remained untouchable until 1988.

Unlike most other team sports, ice hockey holds a World Championship tournament every year. Since the early 1970’s the Finnish Lions were counted as medal contenders but returned empty-handed each time. The agonizing wait for first major international medal was finally rewarded at the Olympic Games in Calgary in 1988, where Finland beat the USSR in the final game of the tournament to earn silver.

In the world elite

Every reason to celebrate in Calgary 1988
In 1974 Veli-Pekka Ketola and Heikki Riihiranta became the Finnish hockey players in North American major leagues when they joined Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association (WHA). In 1976 Matti Hagman of Boston Bruins became the first Finnish player in the National Hockey League (NHL). The first genuine world star in Finnish hockey was Jari Kurri, who won five Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers between 1984 and 1990 and ended his NHL career in 1998 as the highest-scoring European player in league history.
We are the champions! Team Finland at the World Championships 1995.

The collapse of communism caused profound changes in the world hockey map in the 1990’s. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were replaced by Russia and Czech Republic, who sent their best players to the NHL just like Sweden and Finland had done for years. From now on there were four hockey powers of roughly equal strength in Europe, Finland among them. In Prague 1992 the Finnish Lions won their first World Championship medal, silver. Gold medal was not long in coming. In 1995 the Lions beat their eternal rivals Sweden in its home lair in Stockholm in the World Championship final. The homecoming champions were greeted by tens of thousands of jubilant people in the streets of Helsinki.

Since 1995 Finnish hockey has kept on winning Olympic and World Championship medals at a fairly regular pace. This holds also true for Finnish women. Finland was the third country in the world (after Canada and the USA) and first in Europe to take women’s ice hockey seriously: in 1998 Finland won bronze in the first women’s Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano.
Ice hockey is the only team sport where Finland can regularly compete for medals at Olympic and World Championship level. It is also clearly the most popular sport in Finland measured by attendance figures, television coverage and sponsorship. In no other European country does ice hockey occupy such a prominent place in the domestic sport scene, and on world level only Canada can compete. This explains why a small country like Finland has become a world power in hockey.

The Women’s Team won Olympic Bronze in Nagano 1998

Espn segment on book – Black Ice – Historical book about Halafax, Nova Scotia’s (CHL) Colored Hockey League circa 1895-1925. Informative and Interesting

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Ron Maclean

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Ron Maclean

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Ron Maclean

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Ron Maclean

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Darren McCarty

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Dick Irvin

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Dick Irvin

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Brian McFarlane

Interviews, Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrator Brian McFarlane

Photos, Live Game Action and More. Narrators – Brian McFarlane & Dick Irvin

History
Ilustračné foto, Štartfoto
Ilustračné foto, Štartfoto
Canadians are justly proud of their bringing ice hockey – one of the most tremendous games to the whole world. Overseas it was already played in the last century but began entering Europe step by step, too. The first European Championship took place in 1910. During that time Canadian (ice) hockey was a rival to bandy hockey and definitely took the lead after the Olympic Games in Chamonix in 1924.

Bandy hockey was number one in Slovakia, too. Canadian hockey got only popularised during the European Championship in High Tatras in 1925.

The year 1929 is the milestone of the ice hockey in Slovakia, when the first volume of the Tatra Cup (the second oldest tournament in Europe – after the Spengler Cup) was organised in Starý Smokovec. Two days later, on January 31st, 1929, the first Slovak hockey organisation was established under the name of Slovenská župa kanadského hokeja as a part of the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation.

The founding members were Ski klub Bratislava, ŠK Slávia Banská Bystrica, ŠK Vysoké Tatry, ČsŠK Košice and ŠK Žilina. So the hockey finally got its “mother” organisation in Slovakia and this date is considered as the initial day of history of ice hockey in Slovakia.

The first organised competition, The Slovak Championship, was launched already in 1930 and the first Slovak team managed to fight its way to the National Czechoslovak Hockey League in 1936. It was the HC Tatry. The university club VŠ Bratislava became the second participant the following year.

The first Slovak player included into the Czechoslovak National Team was Ladislav Troják, player of HC Košice. In 1934 he left for Prague to play for LTC Praha, one of the best hockey clubs in Czechoslovakia those times. That was a springboard to the representation team for him. Neither did he staid away from the Team Czechoslovakia at the Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, where the representation selects ended up on the 4th place. However the clouds of fascism and the World War II had already been flying over the Europe then.

After the disintegration of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and during the time of establishment of Separate Slovak State the Slovenská župa kanadského hokeja changed to the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation and the first Slovak National Team resulted from that change. The Slovak representation selects played 10 international games with the balance of 3 wins, 2 ties and 5 losts in period between 1940-1943. In country under the High Tatras ice hockey was generally enjoyed by public, particularly where the natural conditions were suitable. Banská Bystrica, for example, was one of such towns and had the largest number of players representing Slovakia.

The Slovak Ice Hockey Federation became a part of the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation after the World War II and four Slovak teams (ŠK Bratislava, VŠ Bratislava, ŠK Banská Bystrica, HC Vysoké Tatry) participated to the restored national competition.

The first post-war World Championship was played in Prague in 1947 and Team Czechoslovakia again also consisted of Ladislav Troják, who unfortunately died at the air crash over the La Manche together with 5 other members of National Team. It was his fifth championship. Matej Buckna, Slovak of Canadian origin was a Head Coach of the National Team.

Many more Slovak teams like VŠ Bratislava, ŠK Banská Bystrica, Žilina, Poprad (for 5 seasons) were introduced to the national competition during the first decade after the World War II. Only the HC Slovan Bratislava, where the best hockey players (also from villages) started to assemble, managed to hold their permanent place there. It was particularly their contribution to arising the number of the Slovak players in the National Team during the 50-ties.

Bratislava hosted the world hockey elite in 1959. One group of the World Championship was played there. Canadian National Team enjoyed great interest together with the Team Czechoslovakia. The cradle of ice hockey was represented by the club Belleville McFarlands. It was them (Czechoslovakia and Canada), who were promoted to the final round played in Prague. That championship had an enormous share on the further popularisation and development of ice hockey in Slovakia.

International Hockey Federation – FIH, has posted the History of the Rules

International Hockey Federation – FIH, has posted the History of the Rules