The sole Costa Rican hockey team visits Calgary, Canada

Feb

2010

When Costa Rica's one and only youth ice hockey league came to Calgary for a training session with the women's Olympic team, it was not the first time the Canadian town had witnessed a tropical country tackle an icy sport.

As immortalized in the 1993 Disney film “Cool Runnings,” an improbable bobsled team from Jamaica became serious contenders at the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. Bruce.

Callow, a Calgary native and head coach for Costa Rica's hockey league, witnessed the action while working onsite at the Olympics.

The Jamaican team was the biggest hit, he said. “Now, whenever we go to Calgary they don't think it's strange to have an ice hockey team in Costa Rica. They give us a hand.”

Callow coaches El Castillo Knights, currently the only youth hockey league in Central America. The team, whose players'ages range from 6 to 17, practice and compete at Costa Rica's sole ice rink at the Castillo Country Club in Heredia.

Increasingly, however, the team's dreams of international glory have outgrown the club's undersized ice rink, while the club's commitment to expanding the program is unclear.

“I've had at least half a dozen players that could have competed in junior or university hockey in Canada,” said Callow. “But then we don't have the facilities to develop them any further.”

Callow, who works as a political/communications officer at the British Embassy in San José, has been playing hockey since he was 7. After moving to Costa Rica in 1992, he began organizing official hockey games in 1996. For an ice rink, players used a plastic ice surface in the middle of the food court at the Real Cariari mall.

The hockey program at the Castillo Country Club emerged in 1997. El Castillo Knights have since gone on to win a tournament in Cuernavaca, Mexico, received praise from Canadian Ambassador Neil Reider and hosted the Air Canada touring team, the Vancouver Flying Pirates.

Callow said he believes Costa Rica has the potential to become a real force in international ice hockey, citing Mexico, whose players have competed in Division III world championships. Mexico currently ranks 38th in world rankings – not bad for a country with nine ice rinks, six of them based in Mexico City, and 1,223 registered players.

“We've seen some good players coming up in Costa Rica,” said Callow. “But because the rink is so small, the player finds it a bit tough to develop further after reaching a certain skill level.”

The small rink – which at 18 by 20 meters (about 59 by 65 feet), is much smaller than a regulation ice rink – means that students are forced to practice all together on the ice at the same time, regardless of either skill level or age.

“You have little kids skating along with teenagers,” said Callow. “It's the same as an outdoor shinny game in Canada where everyone just shows up and starts playing. If we just had a little more ice time and a bigger rink, we'd start classifying players more.”

Limited space also means limited practice time: the team officially meets only once a week, for one and a half hours every Saturday afternoon for practice. The rest of the week, the ice rink is open to the public, and consequently dominated by figure skaters.

The Castillo Club plans to expand the ice rink, but has yet to set a date.

Costa Rica hockey team “At the moment, the club has an ambitious plan for expanding the ice rink to twice its size,” said Jeffrey Gómez, the club's director of deporte y recreación. “But I can't tell you when that project would begin. It depends on the priorities of the board of directors.”

Callow said he was also unsure if the planning stages of the project would ever leave limbo.

“I'm not sure how far along that's going,” he said. “As soon as that becomes a reality, we'll have a new opportunity to grow the program.”

Callow said that the program's very existence has been threatened at times.

“Periodically over the years it'll be discussed that it's better just to close down and use it for rollerskating or something like that,” he said of the ice rink. “Right now we're kind of facing that. It's come up in years past as well.”

Members of the club's board of directors could not be reached for comment.

“It's the department's priority to always rescue the hockey program,” said Gómez. “It's an appealing alternative for many.” He said the program's existence depended more on its popularity with local Ticos.

“One of the program's conditions is that a minimum of 10 children need to participate in the program each year,” said Gómez. In the case that not enough students would enroll in the program, the permit would be broken, and the club would rent the ice rink to anybody who wanted to use it, he said.

According to Gómez, approximately 16 students are enrolled in the program right now. Both Callow and Gómez said that the team's ratio of Ticos to non-Ticos is consistently 25 percent to 75 percent.

Another pressing problem that El Castillo Knights face is a question of equipment. Even in Mexico, where many ice rinks rent masks and sticks for as low as $3 per use, prices have prevented the game from growing in popularity.

Thanks to a little help from the Goals and Dreams Fund, a foundation run by National Hockey League Players' Association, the Knights received $30,000 worth of equipment and skates. The Calgary Flames provided helmets, while other small towns in Canada have donated secondhand equipment.

Taking care of the club's ice rink is another challenge.

“The technology at the rink goes back to the late 1960's,” said Callow. “We don't have a Zamboni, just an ice planer. It's very simplistic. But they do a really good job at maintaining it themselves.”

While El Castillo Knights have survived despite these odds, the question remains whether the team will ever have the space, time and equipment that would allow them to compete internationally. The ice rink at the Castillo Club, meanwhile, remains a key stepping stone.

After trying to keep the program alive all these years, it would be a real shame if for any reason the ice rink was closed down, Callow said. “Putting something else there like a dance hall, there'd be no comparison. But not everybody is as big a hockey fan as I am.”