Ice hockey federation targets 2030 Winter Olympics, rink

LOOK OUT for Jamaica to make its ice hockey debut in the 2030 Winter Olympics. That is the new target set by the Jamaican Olympic Ice Hockey Federation (JOIHF). Don Anderson, president of the federation, says Jamaica will not be able to meet stringent qualification prerequisites for 2026.

"First of all, we did indicate, and we have to make a confession, we did indicate that we were targeting the 2026 Olympic Games. When we looked more closely at the regulations governing any country getting to the 2026 Olympic Games, we realised that we were already behind the eight-ball in terms of time because some of the requirements would have been needed to have been filled from 2020," Anderson explained.

"So we would like to say categorically right now we're not going to be able to make it to the 2026 Olympic Games because we'd have had to fulfill quite a bit of the criteria before then," he said, before making a comparison between ice hockey and bobsled.

"Were we a bobsled federation, we would be going for 2026 because bobsled doesn't have to fulfill all of those regulations, and to me, pretty stringent requirements to get to the Olympic Games. If you compete and compete internationally and you do well, you stand a chance of qualifying with bobsled. Not so with ice hockey," he said.

"They have a lot of stringent conditionalities such as players having to be resident in the country for two years before. They have to be home grown. They have to have an ice rink," enumerated the sports administrator who became JOIHF president in 2020.

"If we didn't have those limitations, I would say we're going to go gung-ho for the 2026 Olympic Games because we have the talent right now, and we believe we can build it for 2026. But we cannot, and I say it categorically, cannot aim for 2026 at this point," he emphasised.

Anderson is optimistic that Jamaica will be able to satisfy one of the key requirements: having an ice rink at home.

"We're quite positive about it. First of all, the Government has two separate plans for the construction of an ice rink. We don't expect Government to finance it, period, but Government is prepared, I believe, to help to facilitate by the granting of available land," he outlined.

"They have come from two separate groups. Let me make that clear. It came from JOIHF in the first place through a gentleman who submitted a plan for building of a 400- or an 800-room hotel with an ice rink and we presented (it) to the minister in February, Minister Babsy Grange in February, a blueprint for the construction of an ice rink inland that the Government will make available to us somewhere. It's still very, very active," said the former Jamaica Olympic Association vice-president.