New Challenge for Tnuvot - One Ice Arena to host IIHF U20 World Championship

May 26-27, IIHF, the world ice hockey governing body, held its Annual Congress during the closing stages of the 2023 World Championship in Tampere, Finland. Part of the routine program of this much-awaited event was the allocation of international tournaments for the upcoming season.

Israel emerged as one of the main beneficiaries as our country was granted the right to host the 2024 Men’s Under-20 World Championship in Division III, Group A. The tournament is scheduled for January 22-29 next year and will take place at One Ice Arena, the country’s newest and most comfortable ice rink.

EXCITING DEBUT

This will be the second IIHF tournament in as many years for One Ice Arena. Last March, the venue was put firmly on the global ice hockey map by hosting the 2023 Women’s World Championship in Division IIIB. For the home team, the event will always be remembered thanks to its first-ever international win – and this was only the second-ever tournament for our women – and for the organizers, this proved to be a clear sign of worldwide recognition.

Peter Briza, former renowned Czech international goalie, now IIHF Senior Vice-President, came to Tnuvot as s tournament supervisor and was impressed by what was on the show.

“It’s a beautiful arena”, he told IIHF.com after the event. “In addition to the main ice, it has a practice rink which is very important for so-called smaller countries where ice always has to be shared between hockey, figure skating, and public skating as well. Of course, it’s been a challenge for the arena and national Federation to organize this event but they did a great job and proved that there is a future for further tournaments in the country.”

“I encouraged the local Federation to apply for other events because it brings more popularity and for sure leads to progress. We want to be cooperative and help in many ways. I hope, Israel will stage more tournaments in the future. Not just hockey-wise. This is a great arena but also a fantastic country with so many historic and cultural attractions.”

“Absolutely, with such a venue Israel Federation has a good chance of staging more events like U20 or U18 tournaments in their divisions. This is exactly the way how to promote hockey all over the world”.

Well, no sooner said than done. We will continue promoting the game next January when five teams representing four continents – Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Turkey – come to Tnuvot to play our team and contest promotion to Division IIB.

GREAT RUN IN ISTANBUL

Last January, our juniors came tantalizingly close to reaching the ultimate goal. That time, eight teams competed in Istanbul, Turkey. They were split into two groups, and the preliminary round was used to determine the seedings for the playoffs.

Team Israel was untouchable in the round-robin storming to three comprehensive wins. On the road to the playoffs Eduard Revniaga’s squad beat South Africa 16-1, Bulgaria 8-0, and Turkey 6-3. This was followed by the thrashing of Bosnia & Herzegovina 10-0 in the quarters. Rematch with Turkey in the semis proved to be a much closer affair but once again our guys emerged as eventual 6-4 winners.

It all came down to the final clash with Australia. The promotion was looming, and expectations were high but the Aussies proved to be too strong. They grabbed the gold with a 4-1 win and took off to Division IIB replacing Mexico which lost all of its five games in the upper tier.

Now then, it’s time to launch another bid! Hopefully, on home soil, Israel U20s can go one step further.

EURO TRIPS FOR THE REST

The other three teams representing Israel in the World Championships program will travel to Europe next spring:
– Women, inspired by their first-ever international win, will go to Estonia to compete in Division IIIB (24-29.03.2024);
– U18s, having reached the heights of Division IIB for the first time since 2008, will pass the new-level test in Spain (06-12.04.2024);
– And, finally, men after a huge and successful effort of securing their spot in Division IIA, will hope to at least repeat the feat in Serbia (21-27.04.2024).