Because it is primarily played in cold conditions during the winter months, ice hockey is particularly popular in countries with colder climates, such as Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Those countries have won 21 of the 25 gold medals in ice hockey at the Winter Olympics since the sport was first contested in 1920. The National Hockey League (NHL), the world’s preeminent ice hockey league, has teams in Canada and the United States, while some of the other best professional leagues are in Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and Sweden.
However, ice hockey is a growing sport that is increasingly being played in warm-weather countries. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the sport’s global governing body, has 76 member nations, including many from Africa and South America. Ice hockey is also being played at the grassroots level in several other warm-weather countries.
Here’s a look at five Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries that operate national ice hockey programs.
Saudi Arabia
Although it is not affiliated with the IIHF, Saudi Arabia does have a national ice hockey program with a history dating back to the early 1990s. The national team, managed by the Saudi Winter Sports Federation, began playing on a small ice rink in the Fal Shopping Centre in Riyadh and, in 1994, won the Canuck Cup in Dubai. This team largely consisted of expats from Finland and Canada, but also had five Saudis.
Saudi Arabia participated in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Gulf Ice Hockey Championship in 2010. It lost its first two games to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by a combined score of 24-4, but closed out the tournament with its first-ever international victory, a 3-1 win over Oman. More recently, it won two of three games at the 2022 GCC Games in Kuwait City to earn a silver medal.
Tunisia
Tunisia is one of four North African countries with IIHF membership. Its national ice hockey association was created in 2013, and the country played its first unofficial game on June 14, 2014, losing 6-5 to a club team in France. Two years later, Tunisia’s national team, the Carthage Eagles, won the African Ice Hockey Championship in Morocco.
Ihab Ayed, the founder and president of the Tunisian Hockey Association, put together the team by looking for hockey players on Facebook with Tunisian surnames. Many of the team’s players were born in cold weather countries like Canada and Finland. After a lopsided 19-0 victory over Egypt in the first game of the tournament, Egypt scored an 11-6 win over Algeria and 11-8 win over Morocco to reach the finals, where it again beat Morocco 8-7.
Tunisia was granted full member status in the IIHF in 2021.
Morocco
An associate member of the IIHF since 2010, Morocco is home to more than 200 registered ice hockey players, and its national team has participated in regional events such as the 2016 Africa Cup and 2018 Arab Clubs Championship. In 2017, the Moroccan team won the inaugural Development Cup, a four-team tournament for smaller IIHF member nations that also included Ireland, Andorra, and Portugal. While many of the Moroccan players developed their skills elsewhere, the national team in 2017 featured two players who learned the game in Morocco.
“We have the qualities to play good hockey. My dream is to develop hockey in Morocco and find the means to play hockey and get a full-size ice rink,” said Mohamed El Idrissi, one of those two players. “We need a rink and then we can move further. We don’t have a lot of means but we dream about a rink to play international ice hockey.”
United Arab Emirates
The UAE is the most accomplished Arab nation in ice hockey in large part due to funding. There are five ice rinks throughout the UAE and a five-team national league (Emirates Ice Hockey League) that includes teams in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Al Ain. The UAE won the inaugural Arab Cup in 2008 and has since won the GCC Gulf Ice Hockey Championship four times and the IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia three times.
The UAE was also the first Arab national team to participate in the IIHF World Championship in 2010. It recorded its best-ever finish, 37th overall and first in Division III A, at the 2022 IIHF World Championship in Kockelscheuer, Luxembourg. As a result, it will participate in Division II for the first time at the 2023 tournament in Istanbul, Turkey from April 17-23 2023.
Lebanon
Hockey is still very much a grassroots sport in Lebanon, although it has been growing rapidly in recent years. The Lebanese Ice Hockey Federation, although headquartered in Montreal, Canada, maintains youth operations in Beirut and was named an associate member of the IIHF in September 2019. It was named to the IIHF Associate Committee Working Group in 2021.
Lebanon’s national team lost to the Abu Dhabi Storms in the final of the inaugural Arab Clubs Ice Hockey Championship in 2018.