Globe and Mail, Canada
March 17 2004
Rag-tag team seeks puck of the Irish
By ALLAN MAKI
>From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
This was the summary from yesterday’s big hockey game in Iceland:
Mexico 8, Ireland 3. Ireland’s first two goals were scored by a
Russian defenceman. The Irish also got a goal from a left winger who
just happens to be a tennis pro who lives and coaches in Dublin.
But forget about that for a moment. Yesterday is done. Today is the
day that matters. Today is the day the tennis playing Larry Jurovich
and his Irish teammates have been thinking about for months; the day
they can do themselves and all Ireland proud by scoring their first
victory at a world hockey championship and on St. Patrick’s Day, no
less.
All they have to do is beat Armenia. Beat Armenia on St. Paddy’s Day
and, guaranteed, Irish hockey will have its galvanizing moment, its
1972 Summit Series, its 1980 Winter Olympics; also a good excuse to
drink green beer.
Mind you, just making it to the 2004 International Ice Hockey
Federation Division III world championship in Reykjavik is a major
accomplishment for this Irish team. Ireland has little history and no
burning connection to the game. It has even less when it comes to
youth hockey. As for permanent rinks, you can count them on two
fingers (the Odyssey Arena in Belfast and the International Ice Bowl
in Dundonald).
That so few given so little could get to a world championship is a
tribute to the Irish team’s spirit, its raw athleticism and, of
course, a bunch of puck-crazed Canadians.
You didn’t think there’d be a hockey story without some Canadian
content, did you? Jurovich, the tennis ace and goal-scoring left
winger, was born in Vancouver. He is now a naturalized Irish citizen
who serves as the high-performance coach for Tennis Ireland.
Centreman John White is a 44-year-old Dublin-born Canadian who says
he played his minor hockey in Brantford, Ont., with none other than
Wayne Gretzky. Garrett MacNeill, another Dublin-born Canadian, plays
defence for the Manhattanville College Valiants, an NCAA Division III
school in New York.
Then there are the coaches, Greg Fitzgerald and Jim Graves, both of
whom hail from the true north strong and free and now reside in
Dublin. Rounding out the rest of the roster are seven players from
Belfast, nine from Dublin and Dimitry Slavashevsky, the 34-year-old
defenceman whose parents came from Minsk, perhaps to get away from
hockey.
If the Irish lineup seems more than a wee bit quirky, consider what
the players had to go through in preparation for the world
championship. At first, they practised in Dublin, where the last
permanent arena was shut down four years ago. They practised
outdoors, on a non-regulation-size rink, after they’d finished work.
During Christmas, the players practised outdoors at midnight, after
all the public skaters had gone home. They did this three times a
week until they figured there had to be a better way, and there was.
Sort of.
What the Dublin-based players did was climb into their vehicles and
drive 21/2 hours north to Belfast, two, sometimes three times a week,
for on-ice sessions. They did this when they weren’t doing off-ice
workouts at the national boxing club or in-line skating to stay in
shape.
“We may not have a rink, and we may lack game experience, but we’ll
have the best fitness possible,” team captain Mark Bowes promised.
Bowes is the general secretary of the Irish Ice Hockey Association.
He and president/defenceman Cliff Saunders have done their part to
promote the game in Ireland, a game that Saunders has described as “a
cross between hurling and skating with the excitement of both.” (No
word on what Saunders thought of the Todd Bertuzzi incident, which
made a lot of Canadians think about hurling, too.)
Just how well Ireland will do at the Division III world championship
is an exercise in wishful thinking. Five years ago, the country sent
a team to the European under-18 junior championship in Bulgaria and
failed to win a game. Five players from that team played yesterday
against Mexico in a game in which the Irish were tied 2-2 after one
period, down a goal after two periods but badly outscored in the
third.
But to the likes of Slavashevsky and Jurovich and everyone else on
the emerald team, yesterday’s loss is over and done. Today is all
that matters; the day they can down Armenia and make their mark. That
it could happen on St. Patrick’s Day has presented them with an
opportunity they’ve been dreaming about for months.
The question now is: Is there a Paul O’Henderson in their midst?