Whenever Danny gets the urge to strap on his skates, he hops into his car and drives to the nearest rink – a mere four-hour trek! Danny loves hockey, but he lives half a country away from Israel’s regulation-size rink in Metula, in the country’s north. When he’s not skating, the transplanted Canadian can take in the shrine he has built to hockey – an entire room festooned with hockey memorabilia – jerseys, autographed hockey cards, even bobbleheads – thousands of miles away from North American shores.
Danny is one of hockey’s true believers in Israel, the frozen chosen.
Or as the Wall Street Journal described it, “Teams now draw a crew of international hockey fanatics to Metula’s ice on weekends. With yarmulkes tucked under helmets, and the occasional payot, or side curls, swinging free, religious skaters shoot and check fiercely, yet seldom keep score as their shots sail into nets.” They may not keep score, but they seem to be on the right track. Israeli hockey does have its cherished moments. In 2005, Israel, won the gold medal at the International Ice Hockey Federation Division II Group B world championships. Take that, Leafs!
Lest you be under the impression that hockey in Israel is an all-male affair, take a look at the promotional video for Israeli women’s ice hockey.
Rink availability in Israel recently grew by 100 per cent, as a second skating surface was opened in Eilat, of all places. If you’re tired of sunning by the shores of the Red Sea you can tuck inside the Eilat Ice Park & Mall to shop at Zara and Fox, and lace up your skates, too.
But the announcement of the new rink underwhelmed one would-be Jerusalem skater. “I have a crazy idea. How about, in addition to rinks in the two extreme and underpopulated ends of the country, let’s put one full-sized ice rink where people in Jerusalem and/or Tel-Aviv can actually get to it in less than three hours.”
So far, we’ve seen a lot of transplanted North Americans who have retained their hockey roots when in Israel. But what about on these shores? There actually has been a league for Israelis living in Canada who play on behalf of the old country. You can watch a clip of the Israeli Maccabees face off against the Ojibwe Northern Storm for the Canadian Multicultural Women’s Championship. Without giving too much away, let’s just say for the Maccabees, there’s always next year.
And more recently, The CJN profiled Netanya’s David Levin, currently playing for the Don Mills Flyers.
Can all this skating achieve more than just a good sweat and a promising export or two? The Metula-based Canada-Israel Hockey School hopes its mixed Arab-Jewish hockey team might play a tiny part in building bridges to peace. “When you play together, you forget that you are Arabs and Jews,” said Mayyas Sabag, a 12-year-old forward from the Druse village of Majdal Shams. Chimed in 14-year-old Israeli teammate Lidor Bez, “He’s a friend of mine – a good friend,” Lidor said. “When we play together. We aren’t going to let each other fail. Even if he is from Syria, and I am from Israel.”
I recommend the 30-minute documentary, Neutral Zone, about this mixed hockey team. Produced by TSN, it does a good job of outlining the successes of the team without glossing over the challenges and deep-seated distrust they face.
Truth be told, hockey in Israel is not quite as prominent as soccer or basketball or tennis, and has some work to do on raising its profile. There’s the story of a fan who lived on Kibbutz Ein Gedi, not far from the Dead Sea. He was waiting for a bus holding his hockey stick but a passerby thought he was tending his flock holding a shepherd’s crook.