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Apparently South Africa is up and down...

While searching Google and looking for an international forum that has been misplaced I came across an article on the Luxembourg website about hockey in South Africa... Rather interesting reading material...

March 16th, 2008

SOUTH AFRICA - UP AND DOWN

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Kockelscheuer, Thursday, April 3rd: Luxembourg – South Africa

By Michal Travnicek

South Africa is the one and only African team which is participating in the World Championships. This tournament takes place during Summer for the South Africans, which means that it is at beginning of season for theplayers. Their land is situated in the southern hemisphere. Strength of South African ice hockey is something like a sinusoid – up and down.

2006 IIHF World Championship Div II Group A, Sophia, Bulgaria

The history of ice hockey in the southest African country started in the second half of 30’s. The game was mainly played by foreigners. In 50’s and 60’s Durban was the ice hockey center of the country. Then Gauteng took over the lead in South African ice hockey for more than 40 years. Now Western Province is the current champion. In fact, there are three „ice hockey provinces“ in South Africa – Gauteng (former known as Transvaal with center Pretoria), Western Province (Cape Town) and Kwazulu Natal (Durban).

The first league results known outside South Africa date back to 1938. Johannesburg Mohawks became Gauteng league winners. This competition was the strongest in South Africa and therefore its winner was recognized as national champion. At the beginning of 70’s the first „golden period“ of South African ice hockey starts. There are professional players in the country. It was among others thanks to the fact that the season in South Africa takes place during the European off-season. Best known player in that time was Swiss national team defender and later co-coach Jakob Kölliker.

The second part of the Golden years started halfway the 90’s. There are very good players in South Africa like Dusan Halloun (who played in Belgium and this 2007-2008 season for Smoke Eaters Geleen, The Netherlands) or Igor Zajec. League games are covered by TV and it seems to be South African ice hockey is on the way up. This is only true for a few years. At the end of 90’s there were talks of a breakaway league. In season 2005 Gauteng league folded and only thanks to private funding this league is still alive.

In 2002 Interprovincial championships for senior teams was played for the first time. Gauteng selects hold the trophy till 2006. Last season saw two premieres. Kwazulu Natal selects took part in this championship for the first time and Western Province became champion for the first time. What’s the reason? Dislikes to play from the side of Gauteng players. Gauteng teams were partly manned by Western Provinces players. Unfortunately, the same situation is valid for South Africa’s national team. Its strenght depends on likes or dislikes to play for national team and this year will not be an exception.

Wester Province 2007

It is no surprise that Alan Verwey (46) is still one of the best South African players who skates on home ice in this situation. Three Reinecke brothers are very promising players and learned their hockey in Toronto, Canada. Very remarkable is the goaltending duo of Bock brothers. None other national team has brother on this position. Michael Fraquet was selected as Most valuable player during Interprovincial championship 2007. He is one of best South African players. His best stunt was scoring all six goals for his team during a league game in 2006. By the way, his team the Rams was defeated 6:8 in that encounter. Unfortunately, he and other very good players from Cape Town (like Marais or Giot) did not play for national team from the 2005 season.

Werwey Alan

As said above, Western Province is the league´s champion. Its players defeated Southern Gauteng 3:0 in the 2007 finals. The teams met earlier in a round robin encounter in which Southern Gauteng won 3:2. In the final game Andre Marais, who was selected as best forward, scored both the first and winning goal. The latter with ten minutes of play left. Nick von Rahden scored for 2:0 and the result was sealed by another Western Province star Marc Giot with his shot just above ice. In the bronze medal game Northern Gauteng crushed the tired Kwazulu Natal players 15:1. Western Province’s goalie Erik Rodenwoldt topped the tournament with a 97,14 % Saves Percentage.

Photo of George Lyon  - WC 2007 in Dundalk (against Ireland)

The very first game between South Africa and Luxembourg was played in Johannesburg during the World Championship 1992. The home team won clearly 16:0. Alan Verwey (30 at that time) scored a hattrick. In the last encounter against South Africa Luxembourg celebrated its first success by a 5:2 score. It was a very close game. Both the fourth and fifth goals being empty netters on the powerplay.

Luxembourg – South Africa :

0:16 (0:5, 0:9,0:2) – 21.3.1992, Johannesburg, World Championship C.
3:7 (0:3,2:2,1:2) – 12.3.2005, Mexico City, World Championship D3.
5:2 (1:1,1:0,3:1) – 15.4.2007, Dundalk, World Championship D3 Qualification.

JHB Squad comes to Cape Town

... for the first of 4 training camps leading up to Worlds...

The camp takes place on Sunday 20th & Monday 21st where Ronnie Wood and Lloyd Birrell will be honed in on the action as the 32-man squad will be showcasing their talent in 2 morning practices and 2 evening exhibition games.

This camp is sure to be a lot of fun combined with some outstanding hard work and team bonding with old friends meeting up and getting to know each other again on the ice. Although nerves will be running high and players anxious not to be cut, we are looking to have a great camp and good luck to all 32.

As usual WP Ice Hockey will be advertising the game and we hope to pull in a couple spectators to ensure an all-round game atmosphere and a slight taste of what is to come in April. So with only 2 weeks away, you can be sure that all squad members are putting in everything they can to ensure that they are running at speed and impress the "judges" at selections.

More to come....

Monday night is ice hockey madness

A couple hours ago saw the top u18's and senior cape town based national squad members going head to head showcasing their skills to coach Ronni Wood and manager Lloyd Birrell.

The game took off at 8pm with a 10 minute warm up, teams simply being divided using players own black and white practice jerseys. First period took off at a rather high pace and all players were looking sharp.

First line on my line was reeves, yates, millar and magmoed. We generally play together most of the time and enjoy the flow from each other. On the other side of the ice was tchekashkine, joubert, stevens klyde, blazer and van rooyen.

Not putting too much focus on the physical game but rather playing at speed and moving the puck. Our line was dominating most of the first period with good possession down low, on the boards and getting shots in from the blue line.
Taking a shot on the inner thigh from yates kinda put me on edge and after the next face off we got a fumble infront of the net and put the puck away for the first of many to come.

Our 2nd line was made up of johnson, williams, samaai, carlse who saw themselves facing the young line of alex, keenan and lead by cai nebe with his rather comical backhand slapshot.

A fab goal by luke carlse on the rebound from the shot from samaai put our team in the lead but not to speak too soon... Goals from both lines brought them back within range but a bad pass from me, trying to make a cross ice pass was intercepted by mich joubert who finished on lucian lorenzo but redeemed himself moments later with 3 shots on him from russian tchekashkine all with flashy glove saves that put "lucy" back on top.

The final period was a rather scrappy one with the ice not being done throughout the whole game. Passing became a lot more stale and the hitting came into play as players were getting frustrated with the terrible ice surface.

A tag team hit by yates and myself put tchekashkine on his ass in trying to make his way from behind the net to try and stuff the puck but that ended swiftly. A wild stick from youngster heiko meyer landed in the top lip of reeves and caused minor irritation with a blood flow that took a couple minutes to subside.

A tussle behind the net between magmoed and joubert and a big collision with myself and stevens and van rooyen put a great end to the game. Playing half the game stop time and the other half running time, giving the players a feel of what is to come in the world championships in april.

End score was 8-5. A good start and level to measure our final 8 weeks before the champs.
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom

IIHF Website - link to official page for tournament in Cape Town

Check this out. This page is from the IIHF website and will be update live for all the games in Cape Town.

http://www.iihf.com/channels1011/wm-iii

SA Senior National Squad cut to 32

The South African Ice Hockey Association has the pleasure of announcing the first squad cut to 32 players for the 2011 IIHF World Championship, Div III, which will take place in Cape Town, South Africa from 11th April 2011 to the 17^th April 2011.

The players in the SA squad are as follows:

1.       ASHWORTH, Ian

2.       BERGER, David

3.       BIRRELL, Cameron

4.       BOCK, Ashley

5.       BOCK, Gary

6.       CARELSE, Luke

7.       CARDOSO, Damian

8.       ENGLEBRECHT, Chris

9.       ESTERHUIZEN, Francois

10.   FOY, Clinton

11.   GIOT, Marc

12.   HABIB, Franco

13.   ISHMAIL, Tariq

14.   JOUBERT, Mich

15.   LABUSCHAGNE, Cyle

16.   LYON, George

17.   MAGMOED, Deen

18.   MARAIS, Andre

19.   MARSH, Ryan

20.   MATTHEWS, Burton

21.   MILLER, Gareth

22.   NEBE, Cai

23.   NEBE, Jack

24.   REEVES, Chris

25.   SAMAAI, Uthman

26.   SCHLUTER, Lloyd

27.   STEVENS, Klyde

28.   VALADAS, Jack

29.   VAN EECKHOVEN, Grant

30.   VAN ROOYEN, Kyle

31.   WATSON, Dave

32.   YATES , Grant

The final team consisting of18 players and 2 goalkeepers and 2 non traveling reserves to participate in the 2011 Championships will be announced after the camp which will be held in Cape Town from the 20^th of February 2011 to the 21^st February 2011.

The team manager is Lloyd Birrell and the coach is Ronnie Wood.

Congratulations to all the players on their selection and good luck with the final selection for the team. 

Avalanche sign Forsberg for the rest of the season

For those of you my age, would remember and best know the likes of Teemu Selanne, Sergei Fedorov and Peter Forsberg back in the days long before the 2005 NHL shutdown.
Like many of the NHL super-star that have hung up their skates or moved to less flash leagues, this super-star has decided to come back and has been signed to his former team in Colorado... Here is the story:

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – Peter Forsberg is returning to the NHL.

The former league MVP signed a $1 million prorated contract for the remainder of the season with the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday. He joined the team on its charter to Phoenix after practicing at the team facility and meeting with general manager Greg Sherman to sign the deal.

"Peter believes he can compete at the NHL level based on how his workouts went," Sherman said. "He will provide additional leadership to our club and he will have an impact with this young team."

Forsberg said he made the decision to return following a three-year hiatus before Sunday.

"I was a little back and forth," he said. "I kind of made up my mind before practice if nothing went wrong in practice I would see Greg."

He said he doesn't think he can play Monday night against the Coyotes and isn't sure when he can get into anNHL game again.

"There are a few issues that have to be straightened out first," he said. "I'd like to play, but I'm not sure how it's going to go. I'm here, I came here to try and it's going pretty good. I'd like to start playing and see if I'm good enough."

The Avalanche are happy to have him back.

"When he's available to us it will be a big boost for us emotionally and a big boost in our lineup," coach JoeSacco said. "He has a strong history in our organization, but we're not doing it just for that reason. We're doing it because we really believe that he can help us here down the stretch in the last 30 games. We all know how tight the conference is and the importance of these games."

The 37-year-old Forsberg has been practicing with the team for two weeks in hopes of making a comeback. He wanted to determine if his chronically injured right foot could handle the rigors of the NHL. He said he had to get into game shape before he could make a decision.

"The first couple of practices were tough. Guys were flying around you and I felt like I was 47 instead of 37," he said. "It might be the case when I get out playing, I don't know, but it has been feeling better and better, and I came here to try and I want to play hockey. I love playing hockey. I'm not sure I'm going to be good. We'll see when I get going."

He last played for the Avalanche late in the 2007-08 season, appearing in nine regular-season games and seven playoff games before being sidelined by injuries.

He has played for MoDo in his native Sweden the last couple of seasons.

Forsberg was one of the NHL's best players in his prime, helping the Avalanche win the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001. He won the Hart Trophy as the league MVP in 2003, when he led the NHL with 106 points in 75 games.

Forsberg has 885 points (249 goals and 636 assists) in 706 regular-season games with Quebec/Colorado, Philadelphia and Nashville.