Next week is the Maccabiah Games, but already underway in Metula, Israel this week is the World Jewish Ice Hockey Championships, reports the Toronto Globe and Mail:
Three years ago this month, lines of Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers were making their way through town and into Lebanon, where they waged a month-long campaign against Hezbollah.
This day, it’s lines of young hockey players making their way to the Canada Centre arena from their hotels and a nearby kibbutz.
"I never imagined it," said Sean Frank, a 20-year-old player with Canada’s senior team. "Coming to the Middle East to play hockey in July."
There are teams from Canada, the United States, Russia, France and even Israel:
This year there are nine teams, with four of them in an under-16 division.
The senior teams have drawn talent from major junior hockey, elite European leagues, college teams and the American Hockey League. Canada’s goalie, Josh Tordjman, played part of last year for the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes.
It’s a surprisingly fast, exciting brand of hockey.
"I never knew we had so many good Jewish hockey players in Canada," said Sherry Bassin, himself a Jew and a former coach of Canadian Olympic and World Junior teams.
The hope, says Canadian organizer Sidney Greenberg, is to build the sport of hockey in Israel.
(Hat tip to Puck Daddy, who jokes that this is the first story about Jews and hockey in the last 15 years that didn’t mention Jeff Halpern. Personal note: Halpern, now playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning, actually grew up in the same town I did, Potomac, Md,, and I actually saw him at synagogue on Yom Kippur a few years ago.)
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