In February the 2nd edition of the Arab Club Championship took place in Kuwait. Unfortunately due to the change of dates from December to February I was unable to send my Corsaires team to compete. I was however still invited to go as a representative of Algeria.
The previous tournament had taken place two years prior in Abu Dhabi and was a great success. This tournament marked the opening of Kuwaits brand new national rink, which wasn’t completely finished but was a very nice facility which will serve Kuwaiti hockey well for years to come. Teams took part from Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi, Lebanon and Egypt. Unfortunately like us, Morocco and Tunisia did not send teams. Like 2018 in Abu Dhabi the tournament was of a good standard of hockey. Kuwait Stars eventually went on to win the tournament with Al Ain Theebs from UAE coming close second. The tournament had pretty good crowds throughout and was broadcast live on Kuwait TV.
There was also activities for Arab female players including a camp, referee clinic and a game between the Lebanese women’s team and a mix of girls from the Gulf countries. I was really impressed by tournament organisers involving the girls and I was impressed with the girls effort.
I took my skates to have a skate on the new rink but was not expecting to play at all. Within the first day I was recruited by the Saudi team Jeddah Eagles to play. I was really reluctant to do so though as I was so unfit and hadn’t played for a while, I went to Kuwait expecting to sit in a few meetings and observe the games only. Going from having no exercise to practise in the morning and games in the evening was pretty tough, but it was fun playing with the Saudi boys. Jeddah had 5 Canadian guys on their team but were still by far the most inexperienced team in the tournament.
Aside from on ice activity, we had some good meetings and discussion about the future of hockey in the region (before we knew about covid-19), we made some new friends and contacts, we did a bit of sight seeing around Kuwait. Kuwait did a great job with the organisation, the hotel and transport were good.
Looking back we were lucky to get the tournament done before the lock down for covid-19, I believe Kuwait closed it’s borders a couple of weeks after I left.
A few photos below
And on my instagram
