International Ice Hockey school will be again in Jihlava because there is a change in Finland team

01.07.2018 / Daniel Dvořák

International Ice Hockey School (IIHS) is a project that connects the Czech Republic and Finland. Since the first year, the host place has always been in Jihlava for odd years, and Tampere in Finland has been hosting even years of IIHS. This year, everything will be different. Jihlava will host the eighth year of IIHS because of many reasons. As Bedrich Scerban explains, “there are two main reasons for Jihlava hosting IIHS again. First, we are expecting a closure of Jihlava’s hockey stadium next summer because of a necessary maintenance. Another reason is that we changed a cooperative organization on Finland side. This year, players from team KooVee Tampere will come to Jihlava. Even though we have a great relationship with the previous organization, players didn’t have the quality IIHS requires.” Floorball players, who joined the project in 2015, will travel to Finland as the original plan says.

IIHS started in 2011. Selected players have always been thirteen years old, so players born in 2005 are eligible for IIHS this year. As always, 46 selected players are mixed to two Czech-Finnish teams. Players from the Czech Republic are selected only from Vysocina region. On the other hand, Finnish players are selected from Tampere and its surroundings.

Players hockey quality, attitude towards sports and school, and school performance are the most important skills in players selection. Players can not just sign in and pay for the camp, but they must be nominated by their coaches. Because of the IIHS success, International Floorball School and International Referee Camp started in 2015.

Because of the new team on Finland side, Jihlava is hosting the hockey part of the project. Bedrich Scerban, a general manager, says, „The partner from Finland is new at this project, so they asked us to change the hosting place for this year. We accepted that because we are able to show them how the camp works, what quality it has, and what they need to prepare to host the next year of IIHS.”

Despite the fact that IIHS has been around only for eight years, players, who experienced IIHS, have accomplished great achievements. Two biggest ones are thanks to Martin Necas and Jakub Skarek. Martin Necas was present during the first year of IIHS. Since IIHS, he has won two championships with Kometa Brno and played at two World Juniors Championships. He was also drafted as a 12th overall pick by Carolina Hurricanes in 2017 and won the Best Junior player of the Czech Republic award in 2018. On the other side, Jakub Skarek played at IIHS in 2012 and was drafted as a 72nd overall pick by New York Islanders in 2018. On the other side, Topias Haapanen and Sara Sakkinen are good representatives of Finnish side. Topias is already playing for Ilves Tampere women’s team, and Sara has won two bronze medals as a member of Finland women’s national team. Ten players (seven Czech guys, two Finnish guys, and one Finnish girl) from IIHS are already playing in the top professional leagues. We will have a more detailed article about successful players from IIHS soon.