Toggle sidebar

Nepal & Iran want to join IIHF [Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippine officially join]

  • Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates
S E P H

S E P H

Cloud IX
Mar 5, 2010
33,220
18,827
Toruń, PL
http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...=10462&cHash=c915097de9e5b4b6c5d5ea6bbb6dbb38

http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...=10440&cHash=d28cc7a513f6d594825c6af38aa44e72

Sounds like Nepal are closer to join as an IIHF member or partial member. While Iran are talking with IIHF to start an ice hockey federation like Egypt did a couple years ago (FYI Egypt has the most ice rinks in the Northern Africa region with 10).

B_26xqzUYAE4Mxe.jpg

Here is their official logo (no joke).
Click to read more...
 
Last edited:
That's awesome. The more countries playing our game the better.
 
tony d said:
Always great to see nations joining the IIHF, great to see.
Click to expand...

FYI, neither country has, just news saying that each country wants to put in their bid to become members in the near future at different plateaus of their country's level. In Iran's case, they would be starting an ice hockey federation for the first time so they have the ability to become an official member later on.
 
S E P H said:
FYI, neither country has, just news saying that each country wants to put in their bid to become members in the near future at different plateaus of their country's level. In Iran's case, they would be starting an ice hockey federation for the first time so they have the ability to become an official member later on.
Click to expand...

The IIHF has its congress during the World Championship, and its been all but confirmed that both Nepal and the Philippines will join this year. They probably won't be full members, more likely associate members, and it will probably be a few years until they join the World Championships (if at all). However they certainly can then play in the Challenge Cup of Asia (which currently has 10 countries across two divisions), and other various regional tournaments (like the Asian Winter Games and the like).


And its worth noting that despite having a federation, Egypt is not an IIHF member. Neither is Algeria, though they have a small but dedicated program there (boosted in part from the Algerian community in France), though Morocco is a member, and both of them I believe have played in a tournament before with other Arab countries.
 
Indonesia is supposed to be admitted as well this year.

You don't need to be an IIHF member to take part in the AWG. Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain both played without being members in 2011, and Iran is planning to take part in Sapporo in 2017 (20 teams have registered so there may be more non-IIHF members taking part).

Morocco was part of the only ever Gulf Cup with Algeria, UAE and Kuwait. They are now trying to put together a (North?) African tournament similar to the one running annually in Mexico for Latin American countries. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt (maybe South Africa, maybe Kenya... extra long shot Namibia?) would take part.

In the original Arab Cup, neither Morocco or Algeria had any home grown players. All players were European or Canadians with Moroccan/Algerian heritage. In fact, former OHL player and Hungarian NT defenseman Omar Ennafatti was on team Morocco.
 
Last edited:
fan75 said:
Indonesia is supposed to be admitted as well this year.

You don't need to be an IIHF member to take part in the AWG. Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain both played without being members in 2011, and Iran is planning to take part in Sapporo in 2017 (20 teams have registered so there may be more non-IIHF members taking part).

Morocco was part of the only ever Gulf Cup with Algeria, UAE and Kuwait. They are now trying to put together a (North?) African tournament similar to the one running annually in Mexico for Latin American countries. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt (maybe South Africa, maybe Kenya... extra long shot Namibia?) would take part.

In the original Arab Cup, neither Morocco or Algeria had any home grown players. All players were European or Canadians with Moroccan/Algerian heritage. In fact, former OHL player and Hungarian NT defenseman Omar Ennafatti was on team Morocco.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing things up. I may have confused the Philippines with Indonesia as a result, as I think its the Philippines who are going to one of the Asian-based tournaments and are led by a Canadian/American (can't remember where exactly).

It would be neat if an African tournament could get started, if only to spur development on the continent. I'm sure the South Africans would like to have that, if only to save on the expense of international matches. And I could see Kenya joining the IIHF within a few years. They do have a federation, and actually just sold a Kenya national team jersey online a few months ago (which I would argue would be one of the better jerseys in international hockey, they look real great).
 
kaiser matias said:
Thanks for clearing things up. I may have confused the Philippines with Indonesia as a result, as I think its the Philippines who are going to one of the Asian-based tournaments and are led by a Canadian/American (can't remember where exactly).
Click to expand...
No you were right about the Philippines. However all three of Philippines, Nepal and Indonesia are slated to join in May as associate members.

I agree about Africa. There is actually a four team league in Morocco now, and there are rinks recently in Algeria and Tunisia. So it may be hope for some homegrown talent in the competition.
 
fan75 said:
No you were right about the Philippines. However all three of Philippines, Nepal and Indonesia are slated to join in May as associate members.

I agree about Africa. There is actually a four team league in Morocco now, and there are rinks recently in Algeria and Tunisia. So it may be hope for some homegrown talent in the competition.
Click to expand...

Even better then that the Philippines are joining. Seems hockey is really starting to grow in Southeast Asia, as I've also heard talk of Cambodia getting involved now too. And with Singapore and Malaysia already playing in the Challenge Cup of Asia, it bodes well for the region; would be nice to see one of the Asian teams in the CCoA make the jump to the World Championship at one point though, Taiwan seems like the most obvious choice (they already have a U18 team, and are a wealthy country), and I think Kyrgyzstan could eventually (I think their biggest issue is they don't have enough players on the team who meet the nationality criteria).
 
S E P H said:
http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...=10462&cHash=c915097de9e5b4b6c5d5ea6bbb6dbb38

http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...=10440&cHash=d28cc7a513f6d594825c6af38aa44e72

Sounds like Nepal are closer to join as an IIHF member or partial member. While Iran are talking with IIHF to start an ice hockey federation like Egypt did a couple years ago (FYI Egypt has the most ice rinks in the Northern Africa region with 10).

B_26xqzUYAE4Mxe.jpg

Here is their official logo (no joke).
Click to expand...

Holy crap. That looks badass.
 
kaiser matias said:
Even better then that the Philippines are joining. Seems hockey is really starting to grow in Southeast Asia, as I've also heard talk of Cambodia getting involved now too. And with Singapore and Malaysia already playing in the Challenge Cup of Asia, it bodes well for the region; would be nice to see one of the Asian teams in the CCoA make the jump to the World Championship at one point though, Taiwan seems like the most obvious choice (they already have a U18 team, and are a wealthy country), and I think Kyrgyzstan could eventually (I think their biggest issue is they don't have enough players on the team who meet the nationality criteria).
Click to expand...
Cambodia and Vietnam both have ice hockey activities going on, they might be spurred on by the fact Malaysia has added ice hockey to the Southeast Asian Games.

I would think there should be a minimum 5 teams (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines) with the possibility of the other two taking part.
 
TheFatOne said:
Zibanejad and Rahimi has Iranian roots.
Click to expand...

There should be more Iranian hockey players coming up at some point.

Either through Sweden, USA or Canada.

Mika Zibanejad, Daniel Rahimi and Rhett Rakhshani all have Iranian roots.
 
Dima Timashov said:
There should be more Iranian hockey players coming up at some point.

Either through Sweden, USA or Canada.

Mika Zibanejad, Daniel Rahimi and Rhett Rakhshani all have Iranian roots.
Click to expand...

i would think that as well

but do they even have a legit ice rink in iran? i remember watching a video a while back about the opening of a new ice skating rink in tehran but it looked like it was built for ice skating only. i'm guessing they'll start looking into building new rinks with this bid
 
I think if that Egyptian logo had fiery red eyes and less goofy hockey sticks it would be pretty scary.
 
Terry Yake said:
i would think that as well

but do they even have a legit ice rink in iran? i remember watching a video a while back about the opening of a new ice skating rink in tehran but it looked like it was built for ice skating only. i'm guessing they'll start looking into building new rinks with this bid
Click to expand...

There may be a shortage of rinks in Iran but one interesting thing is that competitive rollerblading is a huge thing there. Especially in the last decade or so.

The players of Iranian descent will come from more traditional countries. I don't expect an Iranian trained player to do anything in the next decade.

Funding for sports in Iran isn't great, unless it's soccer. Even with soccer, the federation is unstable and a little bit of a disaster.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom