Israel is on the verge of making a great step forward as the country prepares to host the IIHF Ice Hockey Women\u2019s World Championship in Division III Group B. True, this is not the first-ever IIHF-sanctioned event to be staged in Israel as the men\u2019s national team once played an Olympics Qualification in Metula back in 1996. But it was just one game then, while now we are talking about a three-team tournament well slotted in a steadily widening structure of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program.<\/p>\n
Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina will join the host team in Tnuvot to contest promotion to Division IIIA. Whoever succeeds in a double round-robin tournament will make its first move upward as all three nations are relative newcomers in international women\u2019s ice hockey.<\/p>\n
The Contest of Sophomores<\/strong><\/p>\n This is going to be only the second-ever World Championship for each of the three participants. Their presence on the world map clearly shows how the hockey family continues to grow in a post-covid era. After two years of pandemic-caused hiatus life came back to normal and last year\u2019s first-ever IIHF Ice Hockey Women\u2019s World Championship Division III B came as undisputed proof of that. Serbia hosted the inaugural event welcoming neighbours from Bosnia & Herzegovina as well as Estonia and Israel. In this quartet, only Estonia could boast some history having contested a World Championship back in 2008. But after 14 years of absence, this could be rightly called a second debut if such a thing exists.<\/p>\n For the rest, this was a real debut without any reservations. Especially for Israel as their opening game in Belgrade happened to be the first-ever international game in the history of Israeli women\u2019s ice hockey.<\/p>\n Estonia prevailed in Belgrade, comprehensively winning all three games with an aggregate score of 24-1, which was probably fitting for the only team with some \u2013 even a remote \u2013 pedigree. Gaining promotion to an upper level, the \u00a0Estonians showed others the way. Now the three sophomores are vying to follow the path.<\/p>\n Future is Bright<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s amazing how young these three teams are. Last year in Belgrade, a total of 38 players were born in 2002 and beyond. Serbia led the way in the youth department with the entire squad that hit the ice of Pionir Ice Rink composed of players who could have formed an U20 team. How many of them have passed the 20-year mark since then, you may wonder? Just two.<\/p>\n All three nations have similar youth development programs scheduled for many years to come, which is undoubtedly the best thing you can do for the good of the game. If you can\u2019t rely on mature players with a wealth of experience in young women\u2019s hockey programs, you just have to raise them and the sooner you start the better. This is exactly what hockey authorities in Israel, Serbia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina have been doing in the last few years. Each time their young talents step on the ice, they step into the future which seems brighter with every shift of every game.<\/p>\n As one team is eventually going to win the ultimate prize, all three are looking to benefit from the forthcoming tournament knowing that valuable experience is the most needed of all assets at this time.<\/p>\n Exciting Experience for Hosts<\/strong><\/p>\n Based on last year\u2019s results, Israel may not be a favourite on paper but the host nation is still looking to be the major beneficiary. According to Esther Silver, the team\u2019s General Manager, a unique chance of hosting an official IIHF event will undoubtedly give a huge push to the game.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving the tournament here is absolutely a boost for local hockey \u2013 and for the OneIce Arena \u2013 which is hosting,\u201d she says. \u201cIt will increase awareness of women’s hockey in Israel and hopefully draw in more girls and young women to come and join the program.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver\u00a0knows what it means for a young and inexperienced team to feature on an international stage as she keeps the fondest of memories from last year: \u201cThe tournament in 2022 was exciting and fun! Our girls are so social that they won everyone over… so much camaraderie. And they really improved their play in just over one week and were exposed to a higher level of hockey. It was run quite well and despite Covid restrictions, everything went smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n Last time out, Israel failed to impress on the ice losing all three games but now the team is looking to be more competitive as the past year brought some experience, notably in Jerusalem in July 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cWe participated in the Maccabiah,\u201d Silver explains. \u201cFirst time ever that there was women\u2019s hockey. It was terrific and even a higher level than the IIHF games in Belgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n Backed by this experience, the Israeli women\u2019s national team hopes to do better than a year ago \u2013 maybe achieving its first World Championship win or at least scoring more than a lone goal they put on their credit last year. However, Esther Silver prefers not to set any particular goals.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the upcoming tournament, I\u2019m hoping that all the training the girls have gone through will show in their play \u2013 smarter moves, anticipating plays, killing penalties and just playing more efficiently,\u201d she said. \u201cThis year we have about three, four new players including a veteran who was one of the pioneers of women\u2019s ice hockey and a couple of younger players. The line-up is pretty good, we have a very talented goalie, so I\u2019m hoping we\u2019ll have a better outcome this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israel is on the verge of making a great step forward as the country prepares to host the IIHF Ice Hockey Women\u2019s World Championship in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"yoast_head":"\n