I was born in inner city London with Algerian roots. I could talk about the cliché of growing up in social housing or coming from a low income family  but I’d rather focus on who I am now and what I’ve become. I never felt as if I went without. Like most kids growing up in London I had no idea about ice hockey, I never knew it existed, but purely by chance a friend lent me the NHL game on the Sega Megadrive, I became addicted to it. On my twelfth birthday my mum asked me if I wanted to do anything special, I asked to see an ice hockey match. So on my birthday we went to see my local team, Lee Valley Lions play. I was amazed, the speed, the hitting, the fighting, it was like the video game and I loved it.

Shortly after, I began skating and then playing hockey, at the nearest rink to me, a small rink called Sobell Centre. Skates and equipment were expensive so I had to get one piece at a time. After a couple of years I moved up to play more organised hockey with Haringey in the English junior leagues. It was good fun and gave me the opportunity to travel around the country and play in different rinks. Meanwhile I was studying sport and leisure studies at college.

In my early 20’s, after a break from hockey, I began playing again for fun. I had my own online business and it gave me time to train when I liked, it also gave me the time to put more thought into the crazy concept of an Algerian national ice hockey team. Watching the Algerian national football team throughout my life I dreamt of similar national support and excitement for a team in the sport I love. I searched for Algerian names, on google, on hockey player databases such as eurohockey.net and eliteprospects.com, and on French hockey sites, knowing France would hold the most players of Algerian origin. I was amazed to find there were a considerable amount of names, and within weeks enough players to realistically have a team. I began contacting players through various social media sites and directly through their clubs. The response was great, everyone shared my dream of an Algerian ice hockey team and representing their country of origin.

Having gathered enough players, I set about designing the logo and the uniforms, then started creating the website and social media pages, I think myspace first, that’s what was big at the time, Facebook was next and had just started gaining popularity. We started getting some attention, the next step was to get the team together and play. I contacted the most established Arab ice hockey team, UAE, and suggested an idea of an Arab cup. They liked the idea, they brought Kuwait on board. They asked me to bring Morocco in, I’d had some contact with them in the past, providing names of Moroccan players I had found while searching for Algerians. Within a couple of months I was flown out to Abu Dhabi, all expenses paid, to work on the organisation of this tournament. I flew home and immediately put in plans for a warm up camp in London and then for the team to fly out to Abu Dhabi a week later. There were both positives and negatives with the Arab Cup tournament, but overall it was an amazing unforgettable experience, I go in to more detail about the story of the Arab Cup HERE. Scoring the first goal against Morocco was the highlight for me, a real dream come true, a video of the goal can be found on my VIDEO PAGE.

My dream didn’t end at the Arab Cup, following my return to UK I signed for the team I first watched as a 12 year old, Lee Valley Lions. By no means an NHL team, but still a great personal achievement for me, I felt as if I had come full circle. The following season I remained in the English National League signing for Streatham Bruins.

Although we continued to play exhibition games every so often in France, it’s was incredibly challenging working on the Algerian national programme, the Sports Ministry had never really taken us seriously and had never really supported us, out of frustration it took some what of a back seat for me, I’d put so much time and money in to it already. It was partially my own fault, I should have initially put more time and effort in to dealing with all the endless bureaucracy and red tape of Algeria rather than finding players and organising games.  It was naive on my part and a lesson learned for future.

However, I didn’t give up and in 2016 I created Algeria’s first ever hockey, the Corsaires, with the aim of growing hockey inside Algeria. I managed to create a logo, design the uniforms and bring a team together in time for the African Club Cup in Rabat, Morocco. The first of its kind, we came 3rd with the Tunisian club winning the tournament. This was the start of a really bright period in Algerian hockey, in 2018 the Corsaires competed in the first ever Arab Club Championship in Abu Dhabi followed by more support which eventually lead us to gaining IIHF membership in 2019 which made all the headache and frustration and low times worth it for me. No one will ever know how it felt for me to get Algeria IIHF membership after all these years.

2019 had another interesting moment for me. I was unable to put a team together for the 2nd Arab Club Championship in Kuwait, but I flew out to Kuwait as a representative anyway. On my first morning in Kuwait over breakfast I was asked by the Saudi club Jeddah Eagles to join their team for the tournament. Luckily I had my skates with me and was able to borrow the rest of the equipment. I was out of shape but had a great experience playing in Kuwait. The mood in the Jeddah locker room was really good and it felt nice to be amongst that atmosphere again.

Not long after, the world stopped and of course Algerian hockey stopped completely. Algerian hockey is meaningless in comparison to the devastation the world suffered, but it really came at a bad time for us. We’d just gained IIHF membership, we were getting more government support including plans and promises of funding for a hockey school in the small ice rink in Setif, and suddenly it all faded away.

Fast forward to 2022, we start again. We try to get the government support back, we try get the hockey school going again, we try to get people to remember us and what we’re trying to do. The IIHF Development Cup came at a great time. The national team got back on ice and for the first time in an IIHF tournament. New logo, new jerseys, new players and a win against Andorra and Portugal. These wins plus a close game against Ireland, and the first time an African team has played a South American team when we played Colombia, gave us the publicity and attention we needed to get back on track.

I talk a lot about hockey because this is mostly what people will be here to read about, but hockey isn’t my whole life. Away from hockey I work in digital marketing, I still love gaming, I enjoy travelling, eating out and spending time with my family.

The idea of this website is to follow my journey in the creation and growth of the club, as well as my continued work on the national team. I will post blogs, vlogs, pictures, videos and whatever else takes my fancy, it will certainly be a unique insight. Dreams do come true, some of mine already have, and I certainly plan on making more come true, Insha’Allah.

To be continued….