Ice hockey in South Africa

ATLASVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA – The birth of ice hockey within South Africa was in 1936. The sport has never really had much publicity having to compete with the likes of Rugby, Cricket and Soccer which are the three major sports within South Africa. The sport was growing steadily one stage at a time through the 80’ and 90’s.
 
When I started playing hockey for Carlton Islanders in 1998 the sport had a lot more interest then there is now. There were four clubs in Johannesburg, four clubs in Cape Town and three clubs in Durban.
 
Each club in Johannesburg had U14, U16, U18, U20 and senior teams with 2 to 3 teams per age group.
 
These numbers steadily declined with coaches leaving the country. When the sport was in its prime we had coaches from Quebec, Croatia, Hungary, and Scotland. These coaches attracted players from countries as Canada, France, Hungary, Croatia, Czhech Republic. In 2001/02 there was a premier league that was televised and these players featured regularly in the league for the teams.
 
As the coaches started to leave the sport, so did the players and so did the interest from European players to play in our league.
 
The league further declined with the closing of the Carlton ice rink and then the Krugersdorp ice rink. This left two rinks where hockey could be played; one in Vaal and one in Pretoria. Some players would travel over an hour to practice and to games just for the love of the sport.
 
The last coach that the Johannesburg clubs had was Kristof Kavago, an ex-Hungarian national team player. As the sport is funded by the players we could unfortunately not afford to pay him the money he required and he took up a job with the Chinese Taipei national side as their coach.
 
The only coach with any experience left in the country is Ronnie Woods who hails from Scotland and is based in Cape Town.
 
The Gauteng league now consists of three teams namely, Scorpions, Wildcats (both from Johannesburg) and Warriors (from Pretoria). There are no coaches so the teams run training by themselves and rely on the expertise of the players within the squads who grew up with European coaches to run the trainings.
 
There is a second division league currently running in Johannesburg and Pretoria which we are hoping will be able to develop players into the first division quality players we require.
 
There are four teams currently competing in the U18 division and three in the U16 division. The senior players from the clubs try and help out with the development of the younger players. As we do not have any coaches it is up to the players to assist where possible.
 
The Cape Town league is made up of three teams. The Rams, Sharks and Eagles.
 
The Kwazulu-Natal league is made up of two teams which both play out of the same rink. The rink in Durban, where the teams are based is half the size of a regulation ice hockey rink.
 
The only time the three leagues come together is in September when we host Inter-provincials or SA Championships. This is when Cape Town chooses the best players to represent their province as do Kwazulu-Natal. Due to the fact that the Gauteng teams play out of their respective regions they enter the tournament as Southern Gauteng, Western Gauteng and Northern Gauteng.
 
The games that are played are fully funded by the players themselves as we have to pay for ice time at R750 per hour.
 
When it comes to the South African teams, there is absolutely no sponsorship here and the players are required to pay for themselves to represent their country. In this regard, it sometimes becomes difficult to take the best possible team to World Championships as it can be expensive to travel from South Africa. At the moment RSA currently send only an U18 and senior national men’s teams to the World Championships. We would like to build up our U20 league within the country and get them back to the World Championships.
 
In regards to training, it is very difficult and the only time the entire team comes together is when we all arrive in Europe at the World Championships. As the players span from across the country and we cannot afford to take time off work to come together for training camps as most of the players have bills they need to pay.
 
Our South African team has a few players from Europe and Canada. The Canadian players are Macky, Josh and Dayle Reniecke. They were born and bought up in RSA and learnt ice hockey here. Their family immigrated to Toronto where they continued to play. Josh is 22 and Dayle is 20. Josh played for Markham Waxers and Dayle played for Markham Islanders. Macky is 28 and also played club hockey over there.
 
The other players are Steven Schmid who is from Switzerland but holds a South African passport and citizenship. He has not played for RSA yet but was part of the team last year.
Finally the other players are Matthew Cornforth who plays in Scotland and Nicholas Graf who plays on Switzerland.
 
The goalie pairing usually depends on who can go but it between Gary Bock, his younger brother Ashley Bock and David Berger. The two times the Bock brother have represented the team together was the IIHF Division III World Championships in Mexico and Luxembourg and returned with Silver Medals.
 
The only other teams to obtain medals were the U20 team who competed in Mexico and an U18 team who competed in North Korea.
 
As for a fan base at local games it normally comes down to friends and family who attend. As the games are free, we do try and do some advertising via Facebook as it’s free.
 
There have been a few ex-pats who played in the league over the last few years namely from Sweden, Canada and Finland. The most recent were two Swedes who played for Scorpions and a Finish native who played for Wildcats. All of these players have now returned to their respective countries as their contract with their companies in South Africa ran out.
 
At the moment as you may have previously read, we are busy organising the first ever African Nations Cup of Ice Hockey. We are hoping to make a success out of this tournament. Following this tournament in October will be the National Championships of South Africa.
 
I hope we can keep the sport growing within RSA and the African Continent.
Please keep and eye open for the next instalment. I will include stats and scores from around our league.
 
Contact gary.bock@prohockeynews.com.
 
Editor’s Note:   Gary Bock is new to the Pro Hockey News staff and will provide commentary and history on ice hockey in South Africa throughout the African Nations Cup and beyond.   What is striking is the similarities between hockey players in South Africa and anywhere else the sport is played.   Dedication and love of the sport are inherent in any player.   The lobg drives, the self funding and the odd hours of play.