Developing Mongolian coaches

Participants of the coaching clinic in Erdenet pose for a group photo.

Providing help in Asia, the IIHF held a clinic in Erdenet

ERDENET, Mongolia – At the beginning of December, the first international coaching clinic was held in Mongolia. After arriving in the capital of Ulaanbaatar, the daily 12-hour train trip brought the crew to Erdenet.

The 1975-built mining town has become the second-biggest city thanks to its huge deposit of copper ore and it could possibly become Mongolia’s hockey centre with a project to build the country’s first covered ice arena within the next few years.

The event was funded by the Olympic Solidarity Program “Scholarships for Coaches” and focused on basics in ice hockey coaching and off-ice training, especially due to the fact that Mongolian ice hockey is only played outdoors in short seasons from December to mid-February.

Despite the rough conditions, Mongolia has a league and almost 1,000 players, but their national teams can hardly keep up with Division III nations due to the short calendar and lack of practice. While an arena would be an essential step to improve Mongolian hockey, coaching education should also help move the progress.

“The first day was a full day in the classroom going through the principles underlying the physical development and effect of physical maturation on trainability from the perspective of the Long Term Athletic Development Model originally created by Istvan Balyi but nowadays implemented also by many ice hockey associations in their player development programs,” Jukka Tiikkaja, the IIHF’s Asian Sport Development Manager said.

The event was attended by Mongolian coaches and officials such as general secretary Baasandavaa Choijiljav, who was translating information into Mongolian, and national team coach Shinebayar Enkhbayar. Totally 15 coaches from various cities made use of this opportunity.

The event continued with sport-specific strength training lessons in ice hockey in the class room and free-weight training. Day 3 followed with information on agility, balance, coordination and speed training before the participants went onto the ice for technical skills development on the fourth day. It was the time for stickhandling, skating, passing and shooting with snappy and freezing temperatures.

The last full day was all about sport-specific tactical skills development on and off the ice.

Training open air, the flexibility needed due to the weather and temperatures down to -15° made it certainly a special event.

“The Mongolian National Olympic Committee is interested in developing ice hockey, and this clinic is a concrete example of the co-operation. These possibilities are also important to improve partnership between ice hockey associations and the National Olympic Committees at a domestic level. Especially in Asia, the role of the NOCs is relatively big,” Tiikkaja said. “After the clinic, the vice-president of Mongolian NOC expressed the desire to continue the co-operation with the IIHF and the MIHF to develop the sport in Mongolia.”

With the conclusion of the clinic, the Mongolian league was ready to start for the next two-and-a-half months before the men’s and U18 national teams will play internationally.

MARTIN MERK

Source: INTERNATIONAL ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION (www.iihf.com)