ICEHOCKEY
John Young
South Africa and Australia go head-to-head twice on April 6, on grass at St George’s Park and on ice in Cape Town. South Africa’s ice hockey team will be aiming to score their first win over Australia at about the same time as the sixth one-day cricket match in Port Elizabeth reaches a climax.
The Ice Hockey World Championships (Division 2) starts this Sunday (March 31) at the Ice Station rink in the Grand West Casino Complex.
South Africa are seeded fourth in the six-team tournament with Estonia the most likely to win promotion to the first division. South Africa has a tough first game after Sunday’s opening ceremony they take on Israel, an unlikely ice-hockey powerhouse, perhaps, until one remembers the million-plus immigrants who have moved to Israel over the past decade from Russia.
Western Province Ice Hockey Association chairperson Cedric Robertson says with 450 members nation-wide, South Africa is doing well to hold its own ”in the top of the bottom half” of world ice hockey. ”The passion that we play with equals or betters any other country.”
Robertson is hoping that the locals will get behind the national team. ”Capetonians have a tradition of good support so that might lift the team, especially against the Australians.”
The sparkling new Goodwood venue has given Cape Town a chance to ”come into the fold. We have been wanting to host an international here for a long time,” says Roberston. All of the four world championships held in South Africa since 1992 were staged in Gauteng.
Rink general manager Shern Allely reports that in its first year of business, the Ice Station attracted more than 300 000 skaters. The huge iron girders spanning the roof and the Clock Tower are designed to bring back memories of Cape Town station in the Victorian era.
There is nothing Victorian about the equipment that goes into preparing a rink surface. Thirty-two different points on the rink are measured every day and intricate patterns are cut to keep it even. Allely describes the rink as a ”very expensive fridge with the door open at all times”.
Teams participating are South Africa, Australia, Estonia, Israel, Belgium and Turkey. The tournament ends on April 6.