Tue | May 19, 2026

JOA backs ice hockey Olympic goal

Published:Saturday | December 7, 2019 | 12:20 AM
From left: Jamaica Ice Hockey Federation executive member Don Anderson, Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) President Christopher Samuda, and Jamaica men’s ice hockey team co-captains Jaden Lindo and Teegan Moore admire one of the players’ gold medals that was won at the Amerigol LATAM Tournament in Florida, during a courtesy call at the JOA headquarters recently.
Collin Reid
From left: Jamaica Ice Hockey Federation executive member Don Anderson, Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) President Christopher Samuda, and Jamaica men’s ice hockey team co-captains Jaden Lindo and Teegan Moore admire one of the players’ gold medals that was won at the Amerigol LATAM Tournament in Florida, during a courtesy call at the JOA headquarters recently.

The Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) aims to break ice on another frontier in assisting the country’s men’s ice hockey team’s chase for a historic place at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, in 2022.

In September of this year, Jamaica’s team created quite a shock when they won the Amerigol LATAM tournament in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. The tournament was played among Latin American countries that do not have an ice rink and saw Jamaica winning all their matches.

Members of the team were recently in Jamaica and paid a courtesy call on the JOA at its Olympic Manor headquarters in Kingston.

At that meeting, JOA President Christopher Samuda said: “We’re going to be discussing how we can best help them on the road to the Winter Olympics.

“We’re always encouraging the non-traditional sports, and particularly winter sports, and we’ll be assisting them in their journey because we’re about creating history in sport for our athletes and country.”

The island’s parent body for sport has indicated an ambitious plan labelled ’10 in 20’, which seeks the never-yet achieved qualification of at least 10 sporting disciplines for Jamaicans for an Olympic Games. Their goal is the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

Samuda indicated that given their far-reaching plans for Jamaica’s athletes, they would be extending as much assistance to other non-traditional sports.

“We’ve asked associations involving team sports to submit to us a development programme geared towards qualification to the Olympic Games and beyond, which should include from now an Olympic squad,” he said. “There has to be, from the get-go, among members of the squad, some synergy, game networking, an understanding and advantageous application of skill sets and how to create the run of play if the team is to perform at its optimum.”

Jamaica has previously participated at the Winter Olympics on multiple occasions in bobsleigh, starting from 1988 in Calgary, then 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014 and in 2018 at Pyeongchang, South Korea, which saw a historic first for women.