By Rivka Borochov
Luge sled racing in Jamaica is as unlikely a sport as ice hockey in Israel. But Canadian philanthropists and hockey enthusiasts from Canada were determined to bring their dreams of hockey to the Holy Land. One of them is Sidney Greenberg, vice president of Astral Media in Canada, who has helped fund recreational and professional hockey programs in Israel.
The sport is catching on and inspiring the younger generation.
Out of 424 kids enrolled in the Canada Israel Hockey School in Metulla, an Israeli town that hugs the Lebanese border, about 150 are girls, says apple farmer Levav Weinberg, 32, a volunteer coach and general manager of the hockey school.
The kids are getting the best access to the only Olympic-sized ice rink in Israel. Built in 1992, for years the Canada Center in Metulla was the only rink in the country. Back in 1994, Weinberg started playing with his friends. He’d tried other sports but they didn’t fit the bill. “I was hyper and wasn’t able to sit. I needed to be active and chose hockey. I fell in love.”
Getting enough equipment for every player was a challenge. “We only had 15 sticks, left and right. If you didn’t get there first, you’d have to play with a short stick or with one for the wrong hand,” he recalls.
After five years in the Israel Defense Forces, Weinberg asked his buddies if they wanted to go back to the game, but ice time was expensive for these newly discharged soldiers. They played when they could afford it.
‘I heard you love hockey and love Israel’
In 2009, Greenberg was in Israel for an international hockey tournament. Weinberg approached him with this proposal: “We have 14 players and a goalie. I heard you love hockey and love Israel, and I heard you did this tournament, and maybe you could help us go on ice with $1,000 or $2,000.”
“Money is not my problem,” Greenberg told him, pulling out about $10,000 from one pocket, and about the same in Israeli currency from the other. “I won’t fund a men’s team, but if you give me a proposal and budget, I might give you funds for a kids school,” Greenberg continued.
“I am just an apple farmer; what do I know about writing proposals and budgets?” Weinberg thought at the time. Nonetheless, he went home immediately and started drafting some ideas on paper. Within two weeks an initial check of $35,000 was in the mail to start a school for children age six to 14 in the Metulla region.
They come from Arab-Israeli villages, a Druze town in the Golan Heights, Jewish-Israeli towns and villages and even a nearby Israeli-Lebanese village that straddles the border.
The result is not only a boon for hockey in the Holy Land, but a driving force for coexistence in a region where kids rarely mix between communities, let alone play competitively with each other.
The kids have already scored: This past February, amid protests and strained diplomatic relations, the Israeli team won the U-18 World Championship, hosted in Turkey, by besting South Africa 3 to 1.
Traveling to go pro
And the kids are getting better all the time. Are there any pros in the lineup?
“We are working on it,” says Weinberg. “We do have a few kids at the high Double A level but you have to understand that it’s a new school.
“They didn’t know anything in the beginning, including how to skate. For the first four or five months the kids learned to skate and stop on the ice, then they got their sticks and were divided into teams.”
Today there are 13 teams and 10 coaches. Each child gets on the ice three times a week, for a monthly symbolic fee of $20. A staff of 12 runs the show. Weinberg still volunteers, although his dad would like him to work more at the apple farm, he says.
Next year they will bring in a coach from Canada to take them to another level. They’ve worked in the past with Maple Leafs coach Mike Mazeika.
Canada Israel Hockey School’s students and coaches
met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
while traveling in Canada
The kids also get to travel around the world. They’ve been to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. They met the prime ministers of Canada and Israel there, as well as hockey players from the Winnipeg team. One boys team was recently in Los Angeles, where the kids got hockey advice from the LA Kings pro players. A girls team was just invited to Finland for a training camp.
Today all the kids have their own hockey gear, says Weinberg. All of it is purchased with donations within the Jewish communities in Toronto and Montreal, which each hold an annual drive for the kids, and Air Canada ships the equipment to Israel for free.