With the increasing popularity of ice hockey in Hong Kong paired with the limited ice time for practice and games, players in Hong Kong need to find ways to maximize their practice times in order to improve at the sport.
To compliment the incorporation of ice hockey into the school’s regular P.E. lessons, Yan Oi Tong Tin Ka Ping Primary School installed a synthetic ice rink at the indoor covered playground of the school in March this year. The incorporation of ice hockey into local school P.E. lessons was a first in Hong Kong, and Bruce Wong, Principal of the school, is very proud of this achievement: “Our school’s mission has always been to teach our students the importance of Bravery, Stamina, and Confidence, we hope every student at the school will possess these qualities so that they can face many of life’s obstacles in the future. I find the sport of ice hockey matches very closely with our school’s mission and hence the idea of introducing ice hockey into our P.E. lesson curriculum. We’ve received tremendous support from the Hong Kong Academy of Ice Hockey (HKAIH), with the synthetic ice rink sourcing to providing professional ice hockey coaches to lead the P.E. lessons; it is both our goal to develop and nurture a group of young potential ice hockey players in Hong Kong. The whole process took nearly 3 years, from submitting the application to the Education Bureau, to the final installation of the rink and execution of the classes, but it was well worth the wait.” Since the beginning of 2014, ice hockey lessons have been provided to around 550 students at the primary school, including P.E. lessons, extra-curricular and summer classes.
Wong continues, “The improvement I see in my students after taking ice hockey lessons are remarkable, there was a beginner who can only hold onto the rink boards for balance at his first lesson, by the second lesson he was crying but slowly skating along the side of the rink, I was going to offer help to the student but the coaches stopped me, they explained that this is the learning process each student must go through, if they are able to go through the training process by themselves, the student will gain much more than just ice hockey skills.”
Anqi Tan, Coach and Primary School Advisor of HKAIH, agrees. “Learning ice hockey is different from learning other sports, ice hockey is a game of ‘falling’, you need to learn how to fall and stand back up on the ice before you can learn how to play the game. It is a game which requires an incredible amount of concentration and co-ordination; with skating, puck handling and shooting all happening at the same time, it is a very comprehensive sport and something is going on every second of the game. This teaches students to become fearless of obstacles and to get up every time after they’ve fallen down, just like how they should face life’s other obstacles in the future.”
A school team was recently formed and will be playing in the Primary School League organized by the Hong Kong Amateur Hockey Club (HKAHC) with their first league game in January 2015.
P.E. Teachers and staff from the Yan Oi Tong Recreation & Sports Department are also participating in the P.E. Teacher Ice Hockey Training program organized by the HKAIH to learn the sport of ice hockey. The program is comprised of theory lesson, inline hockey, synthetic ice and on-ice trainings. It is with the aim that P.E. teachers will one day become coaches of the school team and become the in-school coach to train more ice hockey players in the future.
