IIHF – New era for Mongolia

The three,600-seat Steppe Area that was constructed within the capital of Ulaanbaatar through the pandemic and opened in time for the 2021/2022 ice hockey season lifts ice hockey within the huge, landlocked Asian nation to a wholly new stage.

“An important factor is that we opened the primary Canadian-Mongolian joint hockey college. I’ve 150 children practising there together with many women. We had tournaments from four-year-olds as much as 16 years. It’s been an awesome expertise final winter. The power additionally has a basketball court docket the place we are able to play ground hockey and there’s a health centre.”

Mergen Arslan works on his hockey college with the Swiss-Canadian brothers Boe and Nathan Leslie, who by means of the Canadian embassy and firms energetic in Mongolia additionally assist getting gear for youths to the nation.

“It’s nice assist as a result of contemplating our economic system hockey is a really costly sport for us. It’s tough to help hockey for fogeys and the gear could be very useful,” Arslan stated.

Throughout Arslan’s period as a participant hockey was principally performed by grownup males and youth hockey began at 10 on the outside rinks. Now there’s ice time and gear for the age group 4-9, ladies go to the hockey college whereas additionally teenage women and girls have found the video games in recent times.

“Now we’ve got over 25 feminine gamers. It’s only a starting, a primary step. Plenty of ladies who play in my college actually adore it,” Arslan stated. “For a very long time everybody in Mongolia thought it’s only a males’s sport however now every little thing is altering and we’ve got to provide the identical alternative to younger women and girls. We positively wish to develop a girls’s league.”