Final Summary Feedback IIHF World Championships 2007

Namibia has now participated in the International Inline Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships for three years.  It has taken years of preparation and commitment for Team Namibia to attain and maintain the competitive level that has allowed it to qualify and compete in the IIHF World Championships since 2005.

Mr Ben Naobeb from the Namibian Sports Commission has been a mentor and keen supporter for the National Team from the start. His calm influence and vision for our sports code is an example to the team. Mr Naobeb handed over a much-needed cheque in support of this year’s endeavour. He attended this year’s World Championships and helped as an ambassador for our country, which was appreciated by both NIIHA and the IIHF.

Mario Troha (coaching at the Cazadores Club) started the grinding process for the 2007 trials and led the first training camp. In December 2006, Nate Blair (coach at the Coastal Pirates) took up his position as head coach and hence forth took over the lead on the training for the national team. Both coaches are to be complimented on their dedication and hard work. 

This year’s IIHF championship was held in Germany at two tournament sites. The opening and upper level finals were held at Landshut Main Arena, which has a seating capacity of 2000, with additional standing capacity of 5200.  The Championship opened on May 26 2007, when  host, Germany, played the Czech Republic.  The arena had packed ranks, with supporters cheering loudly for their teams. Team Namibia attended this exciting, but one-sided game, which ended at 10-0 in favour of the hosting nation.

On Sunday, May 27, Team Namibia faced Japan in the opening game for Division 1 at the Passau “Eisarena”, which has seating for 200 and 1500 standing options. Our team was supported by approximately 200 enthusiastic and loud supporters, who commenced the game by proudly singing the Namibia national anthem.

Namibia has shared the group with Japan during all three years. In 2005, Namibia lost to Japan 6-3. In 2006 Japan managed to increase their victory margin to 7-2 and in an almost dejavu expericence to 2005, we lost again to Japan 6-3 during this year’s 2007 opening game.  While we have yet to beat Japan, we have seen considerable improvement in Team Namibia’s overall performance in each of these tournaments.  Notably, Namibia’s improvement has also coincided with a steady improvement in the overall competitiveness of the IIHF Championships’ participating teams from the top to bottom teams.

Our team faced Japan for a second time during this year’s World Championships for the relegation game. Namibia placed team Japan under intense pressure throughout the game, but came just short of netting the equalizer losing by 7-6.

(Photo: R. Geisler) Official Opening of the IIHF World Championship 2007 in Passau

Although statistics should not be seen in isolation (they never tell the full story), they do reflect an improvement of our individual players’ performances over the past three years. The 2007 World Championship statistics showed that Team Namibia’s Basti Faber ranked 7, 8 and 9 in the categories of goal scoring leaders, scoring leaders and assists leaders, respectively. This is an impressive achievement given that more than 128 players participated in Groups C and D. With 6 goals and 6 assists, Basti Faber was involved in more than half of our total goals. Vincent van Biljon followed closely on the scoring leaders with 5 goals, ranking 10th overall.

Unfortunately, we also figured prominantly on the most penalised players list, with a total of 43 minutes being spent in the penalty box.  Penalty time, combined with being ranked last on the “penalty killing” table, made it difficult for our team to hold our opponents in their own half of the arena.

Despite this year’s heavy penalties, our team’s competiveness also improved during 2007.  For example during the 2005 World Championships, Namibia only won one of their five games, and concluded the tournament with a total goal differential of -13.  In contrast, during 2007 we also won one game, but the goal differential against a much stronger field was only -6.  During 2006, Team Namibia had its best overall placement, winning two games in overtime (against Argentina and Australia), but still ended the tournament with a negative scoring differential of -10.   Ironically, even though Team Namibia had its most consistent competitive performance in 2007, it placed only 15th out of 16th, meaning that it will be two years before we can qualify to compete again in the IIHF Championships.

(Photo: R. Geisler) Oliver Lohmeier scoring in the game against South Africa

While it is disappointing that Team Namibia was relegated to the re-qualification process, one should not lose sight of the remarkable achievements that Namibia’s National Inline Hockey Team has made.  In order to appreciate these accomplishments, one needs to compare the player and resource base that Namibia draws upon as compared to the other nations competing in the Championships.  The most competitive teams originate from the northern hemisphere, where ice hockey is a well-established and very popular sport.  For example, Japan has a population of more than 100 million people and draws from a base of more than 40,000 hockey players – many of whom are paid for playing hockey.  Further, these players come from organized leagues and play on international standard arenas. 

In contrast, Namibia is a country of 1.8 million, and draws upon a tiny base of approximately 600 people who play in-line hockey, with only about 35 of these players being old enough and/or qualified to try out for the Namibia National team.   Additional challenges include the temporary departure of many of our best players who leave the country for university in South Africa and the absence of international quality hockey arenas.   Ultimately, this situation means that Namibia has to overcome significant hurdles just to qualify for the Championships.  The fact that Team Namibia is competive with these northern countries is a tribute to the hard work, commitment, and team work that our young players display.    

Yet, the relegation showed that there is more work ahead. As one of our mentoring coaches has pointed out: long hours of quality time on the rink are needed on a daily basis.

It would be damaging for Inline Hockey in Namibia not to compete internationally for two years. We could consider to register for the 2008 FIRS World Championships, giving team Namibia additional much-needed international experience. There are a few differences to the IIHF inline hockey, although the standard of play is very similar. There are only two periods at 20 minutes stop-time played per game. Furthermore, there is no offside, no icing and the nets are smaller. This year 19 teams are registered to compete in the 2007 FIRS World Championships, which is being held in Spain.

To further promote international experience, it would be good for our National Team to attend the South American Champs (December 2007) as a preparation for the FIRS World Championships 2008. Although the rink does not qualify as international standardized rink, it has a sport court surface and teams like Germany as well as Argentina attend this tournament.

If resources permit, an additional preparation tournament for the National Team like the Mid- European Tournament (June 2008) where other FIRS registered countries prepare for the World Championships would be beneficial.

For the future, hopefully, the Inline Hockey fraternity will be in a position to upgrade our five in-country rinks. This would mean that Namibia could host tournaments at an international level, giving our younger players (from the under 14 divisions) the opportunity to compete on international level without incurring huge costs to attend tournaments overseas. Ideally, NIIHA would have a national team in every age division for players to grow into the senior national team.

(Photo: R. Geisler) Vincent van Biljon during powerplay