Get your skates on girls … one of the world’s toughest, bruising and exciting sports awaits your participation in Bahrain.
The latest ice hockey recruits are moving in the right direction and regional competition awaits.
Abdulla Al Qassimi has been impressed by their attitude and true grit as they lined up in a straight line along a glass partition enclosing one side of an ice rink.
“This is part of their defensive training,” he explained, as an instructor overseeing the procedure issued a command to one player who was supposed to push her way through the line.
“You can see how they’re scrunched up against that glass partition,” he added. “That serves to help simulate an actual situation in a game. They have to learn how to both go on the offensive and how to defend.”
Al Qassimi, 40, the chairman of the Bahrain Ice Hockey Club (BIHC), was supervising the training session for 16 young women and girls, ranging in age from 15 to 22, at a popular recreational arena in Manama.
“They are preparing for their first-ever tournament which will be played in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from March 16,” Al Qassimi said, wincing as one of the girls fell awkwardly.
“She’ll be all right,” he said, at length, as the girl got to her feet, apparently none the worse for wear.
“There will be six teams,” he added. “I haven’t received the full schedule yet so I don’t know which other teams will be there apart from ours, Saudia Arabia’s and the two teams that I know Dubai, the hosts, will field.”
The squad will be reduced to 13 for the trip. “They’ve all recently started playing the game,” he said. “Some, like the captain, have been playing for slightly more than a couple of years. Most of the others only started playing over the last year or so. This is a chance for them to gain some experience of what competition is like.”
Players from the other teams in the upcoming tournament would be similarly raw, Al Qassimi added.
Behind him, the session had shifted into a different gear. The players were now scattered across the ice – which is roughly half the size of an international rink – with some practicing passing the puck to each other; and others trying to steal it from opponents seeking to sneak it past them.
The enclosed arena of the rink reverberated every second with the rifle shot-like sound of the hockey sticks whacking the puck – or clashing with each other. At one end of the rink, an assistant coach hit and scooped shots at the goal as a goalie flung herself about to stop them.
“There’s our captain, Malak Janahi,” Al Qassimi said, gesturing to one of the players to come over and she skated smoothly across the ice before coming to a skidding stop and climbing out of the rink.
“I’ve been playing this game since 2017,” Janahi said, her helmet still on with the visor reflecting the bright lights overhead. “I got into it by accident – I used to come for free-style skating and one of the guys, who is on the men’s team, asked if I wanted to try it out. I did and now, I’m hooked!”
Janahi was appointed captain last year of what is essentially still a team in the making, but the 22-year-old software engineering student has relished taking on the role and is focused on the game she said she loves.
“We train four times a week,” she said, as a couple of players whizzed past behind her, trying to gain control of the puck.
“Making time for training can be difficult when one is juggling one’s studies and having to concentrate on academic assignments,” she continued. “But, if you love the game, you have to make time.”
Al Qassimi, who started playing ice hockey when he had just entered his teens in the early 1990s and, like Janahi years later, was instantly smitten by the sport, had to stop playing competitively a few years ago because of a serious leg injury.
But he still plays for fun, every once in a while, while he, too, juggles his job with the General Sports Authority and the administration of the BIHC, which was officially founded in 2009.
Without a rink of their own, the BIHC book the facility at the recreational outlet for every two-hour training session with the funds allocated to the club by the sports ministry.
“We are the only officially registered ice hockey club in Bahrain,” Al Qassimi explained. “There are lots of expats, mostly from Canada and the United States, who play here regularly and they’ve formed teams and compete in friendly matches,” he added.
“Most are initially surprised when they first find out about the rink, then a bit confused when they see how small it is, meaning that they can only play three-on-three here. In a proper ice hockey team, there are six players: a goalie, two defenders and three forwards.
“Then, there are locals who have also taken to the sport and formed teams of their own. But those are all in an unofficial capacity.”
With interest growing amongst the young, the BIHC has set up an ice hockey school – which, again, has to use the rented rink as a base.
“We have about 28 children enrolled in that school,” Al Qassimi said. “And, when they’re all on the rink, it’s a sight to see. There’s kids scooting about in every direction,” he laughed.
Meanwhile, there were plans in the offing to create a new, dedicated full-size ice hockey facility for BIHC, but it may take some time to turn from a dream into reality, Al Qassimi said.
“We have big ambitions,” he continued. “But we’re some distance away from realising those goals. As interest in the game in Bahrain continues to grow, we will also make progress and eventually have our own rink and other facilities. But that could be a few years away.”
On the rink, the young women and girls were now standing in a circle around one of the coaches, listening attentively as he explained what he wanted them to do.
“We break the training experience down into two halves,” Al Qassimi said, as the players broke away from the circle and formed two teams preparing to face off against each other.
“One is the coaching the players receive while they’re actually practicing and the other focuses on strategy,” he explained. “That is intended to provide them with a more rounded understanding of the game and how it needs to be played.”
Ice hockey is immensely popular in Canada, where it is the national winter sport and arguably the country’s most popular game. Hockey is also popular in the United States and in European countries such as Russia, Sweden and Finland.
In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance and shoot a closed, vulcanised, rubber disc called a puck’’ into the other team’s goal.
Games consist of 60 minutes of playtime that breaks down into three separate periods. The 20-minute periods don’t include stoppages in play like the puck leaving the ice. If the score between both teams is tied, both teams enter a five-minute overtime.
Fans are convinced there is no sport quite like it: “With hockey you get all the goodness other team sports offer, plus everything unique to our game,” said one advocate. “Unlike other sports hockey is fast paced and exciting with end to end action. There isn’t the delay between plays like other popular sports. The ice also adds an element of speed unlike any other. And, there are goal, goals, goals!”
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