METULLA, Israel — It’s a distinctly Canadian picture – youngsters skating around an ice rink, slapshots reverberating through an arena, white powder flying off blades after a hard stop. Israel Spodek knows this, and even after he made aliyah nearly eight years ago, the spirit of this Canadian pastime is alive and well in the native Torontonian’s heart.
As an antidote to the high-stress Israeli lifestyle and to give hockey-playing olim a taste of home, Spodek co-founded the Israel Recreational Hockey Association (IRHA) in 2005. Located at the Canada Centre in Metulla, the league is comprised primarily of other ex-Torontonians, as well as players from Montreal, Winnipeg and Ottawa, with a handful of Americans. The league meets twice a month for a friendly game of non-contact pickup hockey. The result: the tension of a modern-day, hectic schedule melts away, if only for a few hours.
Spodek admits it can be quite a commute for players who drive out to the northern tip of the country for a hockey game, but it’s well worth the extra couple of hours to enjoy the experience.
“There’s not a lot of downtime here,” he said from his home near Haifa. “Life is pretty intense. There are no weekends like in Canada. The Thursday night game is basically an escape from reality for everyone. You take eight hours out of their month and it’s like you’re back to Canada. You completely forget about the fact you’re in Israel when you’re playing hockey.”
Not that it was always like this, of course. When the Israel Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) was created in the late 1980s, the only hockey played was three-on-three. By the mid ’90s, the members were predominantly Russian olim with hockey backgrounds. In addition to being comprised of seasoned veterans of the sport, the IIHF met only once a week on Fridays, making it difficult for shomer Shabbat individuals to have access to the ice.
When Spodek made aliyah in 2000, he made it his goal to find a venue that would cater to his vision – a hockey league for people who want to pick up and play. By 2005, he had secured the Canada Centre rink and began recruiting via e-mail and word-of-mouth.
Spodek’s persistence paid off, and today the IRHA has had more than 300 players participate in at least one event, with an average of 25 players per game. All are between the ages of 18 and 65 (the average is 45), and participants are welcome regardless of skill level or gender. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the games Spodek remembers from back home: fast-paced and competitive, but in a relaxed and supportive social environment.
“We get beers after the game” he said. “We sit around in the Jacuzzi, we go out for shawarmas.
“A lot of people have come over and thanked me, not just for organizing all this, but for allowing them to cope with the stresses of living in Israel.
In late January, the IRHA played a two-day, four-game tournament against Israel’s national league, with three games going into overtime and the league team coming out on top. It was the IRHA’s second annual tournament and the turnouts for the games have remained strong, with the players’ on-ice skills vastly improving. Although it is a strictly recreational league, the IRHA is already meeting more often than Israel’s national league and Spodek believes that, if it weren’t for the commute, they would probably have four or five teams skating twice a week. His long-term goal is to have a game going every week, something he sees as possibly happening a couple of years down the road when the sport finally breaks through into mainstream Israeli culture.
“I think it’s a sport that’s very attractive to Israelis if they ever really sat and watched it,” he said. “It’s physical and aggressive [and speedy]. Roller hockey has become pretty popular. I see kids playing roller hockey all over the country, it’s really caught on.”.
For now, though, Spodek’s goal “is to have our group and keep going. I want to be playing hockey when I’m 60 years old, so if I could keep playing once a week, that would be amazing.”