Canucks_fo_life Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Team India hopes hockey game vs. ECHL can boost sport back home The hockey players practice on the natural ice they can find, such as ponds and lakes. Only they aren't skating in some small town in Canada or Minnesota; they're two miles above sea level in the Ladakh region of India. In about a month, these players from the National Ice Hockey Team of India will take on the ECHL’s Brampton Beast, the first time the ECHL team will face off against a national squad of any country. “Of course we want to win this game and I’m going to try to win this game,” coach Adam Sherlip said. “But we know we’re going to play against a professional team and we’re not at that level.” The belief is that an event like this can continue to boost Team India’s overall profile. “I have no doubt it’s going to elevate the level of hockey in India,” Sherlip said. “One of the big things we’ve been discussing the last few years is finding opportunity to connect Indians in North America to their national team.” Win or lose, he hopes the Oct. 9 contest in Brampton sends some sort of positive reaction back to his team’s home country. For the National Ice Hockey Team of India, it’s a chance to take on maybe its greatest challenge as a team – in possibly the nicest conditions it has ever played. For Brampton – an affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens – it’s an opportunity to appeal to a large local population with Indian heritage. Beyond the obvious novelty of a hockey team from India playing North American professionals, the Indian team will add several players of Indian descent from the Brampton area for the exhibition. Team India is supposed to arrive in Canada in early October and tryouts for the local players will be held shortly after “We felt like if we could pull something together and do an exhibition game, it would be great for a lot of South Asians who live in the area who may not have been to a hockey game or a Brampton Beast game,” Beast president and general manager Cary Kaplan said. The game came together mostly through the vision of Sherlip, who has been Team India’s head coach since 2009. Due to Brampton’s large Indian population, he targeted that area and that team as a possible spot for an exhibition. Sherlip is not Indian. He lives in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island and used to work for the Islanders in a variety of roles. Sherlip came in contact with hockey in Asia while working with the Islanders’ Project Hope, an initiative to spread hockey in China. Soon-to-be Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero eventually guided Sherlip to the Himalayas area. “She and I had coached in China together. So she informed me about some things going on in the Himalayas and I was immediately drawn to it. In some ways right place and right time and right circumstances,” Sherlip said. Sherlip’s union with Team India came out of The Hockey Foundation, a non-profit he started that brings the sport to children in “less fortunate regions of the world.” “We use hockey to help communities and we’ve been doing things in the Himalayas, like donating equipment, providing coaching and stuff like that,” Sherlip said. Lately, trying to figure out how to push hockey in India has hit a bit of a rough patch. In order to compete in the most recent IIHF Ice Hockey Challenge Cup of Asia Division I in Kuwait, the team needed to start a social media campaign, which eventually proved successful. The Hockey Foundation has coached roughly 1,500 players in India since 2009, which Sherlip says is the approximate total of registered players in the country. Currently, there are 20 people in the program. The squad is comprised of civilians and military, mainly from the northern part of the country. Said The Indian Express from last April In spite of being a national team, they are not paid by the Indian government for representing India in Kuwait. Most of their equipment has been gifted by friends or well wishers. In a cricket-crazy nation, Indian ice hockey has been crippled by a general lack of funds. Most of their equipment has been gifted by friends or well-wishers. In a cricket-crazy nation, Indian ice hockey has been crippled by a general lack of funds. Because of some of these struggles, a portion of the ticket packages for the game against Brampton will go to Team India. “We’re going to cover their cost. We’re going to donate a portion to try to build hockey there, which is part of the concept,” Kaplan said. “A lot of Canadians who are part of Indian descent that maybe haven’t seen hockey so we’re trying to bring those people to the arena and maybe this is a vehicle to do it. The long-range goal isn’t to turn India into an Asian hockey power in the next few years. It’s more to just keep building the sport in the region and see where it goes from there. “The players coming here, I don’t think any of them have traveled outside of Asia,” Kaplan said. “It’s going to be a big event and we hope it’s going to do something for the sport in that country.” http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/team-india-hopes-game-against-brampton-beast-has-international-impact-052855567.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maginator Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maginator Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Not sure if those are players or not ^ I just searched up team india hockey jerseys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobble Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Hope it's an entertaining game and good on India and the Beasts for trying to develop the sport back in India. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Weasel Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 The guy on the far right looks like one of my friends. hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoneypuckOverlord Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_national_ice_hockey_team best of luck to the the team. The fact that they got swamped by Kuwait 39 - 2, in a game were an ECHL can probably destroy Kuwait... yea it's going to be a mess.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amish Rake Fighter Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 a few years ago somebody here put up the sad highlights of a women's Olympic hockey qualifying game that was something like 88-0, I think Hungary was involved walk before you run, maybe try and sneak Prab Rai in there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amish Rake Fighter Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_national_ice_hockey_team best of luck to the the team. The fact that they got swamped by Kuwait 39 - 2, in a game were an ECHL can probably destroy Kuwait... yea it's going to be a mess.... Holy crap, no wonder they got filled in, the Indian national team has 7 players over 40 and only one under 30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goalie13 Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I wonder how they would fare against an average Canadian beer-league team? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Putgolzin Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_national_ice_hockey_team best of luck to the the team. The fact that they got swamped by Kuwait 39 - 2, in a game were an ECHL can probably destroy Kuwait... yea it's going to be a mess.... clicking on the Kuwait link in that wikipedia article one finds that they themselves get dummied regularly by teams that aren't hardly in the top 50 in IIHF rankings...i'm guessing that any collection of 20 cdc'ers could give these guys a game... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amish Rake Fighter Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Years ago a buddy of mine and his brother were considering moving back to Japan to try and join the national team for the Nagano Olympics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Putgolzin Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I lived in Argentina in the late 90's/early 00's and started playing roller hockey there (mostly because even the 5 year olds made me look stupid playing football (soccer)). I played against a bunch of the guys from their national team who had just won silver at the Winnipeg Pan Am games. I'm a very average hockey player and could have easily played on that national team. note - Argentina "won" silver because there were only two real teams in the competition (Canada and the States); after Canada won they were disqualified because the goalie was juicing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tre Mac Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 India's starting lineup: Singh Singh Singh Singh Rajuttamansignh Ganesh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GB5 Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 Sounds like a Jamaican bobsled team sort of story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuckyLuciano Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 If they add some indo Canadian guys they may put up a fight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iinatcc Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Why ECHL? Why can't they do a Mystery Alaska and challenge the Chicago Blackhawks? That would be epic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wshdrvvn Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 If they add some indo Canadian guys they may put up a fight sounds like that's the way they're going to go. They're going to need some local guys to step up for them; it doesn't sound like the India team is ready to take on an ECHL team at all at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoneypuckOverlord Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 If they add some indo Canadian guys they may put up a fight Even if they added the best living Indo Canadians alive right now, Kevin Shunder (Buffalo prospect playin in ahl) Jujhar Khaira,(Oilers prospect will soon be demoted to ECHL) and ask Prab Rai to come out of retirement, they will still get slaughtered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baer. Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 This is happening today. I'm curious to see if any video will be posted online afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kazmanian Devil Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 hope India takes it easy on them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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