The India Hockey 360 festival was North American hockey’s latest collaboration with the world’s most populous country that has 2,554 men’s and women’s players, according to International Ice Hockey Federation figures.
Six-time Canada women’s Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser and retired NHL defenseman Andrew Ference traveled to Ladakh, India, 12,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas, with a group in January 2018 to help showcase the sport.
They came with 70 full sets of equipment through the NHL Players’ Association’s Goals & Dreams, which supports grassroots hockey programs by providing complete sets of new equipment to deserving youth.
At Wickenheiser’s invitation, members of India’s first women’s national ice hockey team traveled to Canada in November 2018 and to participate in her Wickenheiser Female World Hockey Festival in Airdrie, Alberta.
The festival took place at a time when the country hopes to raise its hockey profile internationally. India has been an IIHF member since April 27, 1989, but its men’s and women’s national teams aren’t currently ranked.
Their men’s, women’s and Under-20 boys teams will compete in IIHF world championship tournaments for the first time starting in 2027 in the hockey governing body’s IV Division.
“With Randip and Harry coming in, now I have that vision of engaging with them and getting some kind of coaching experts coming to India for this,” Singh said. “Even if, say, Harry comes in for a month and we do a camp, what I told him, ‘You shouldn’t come to Chandigarh. You should be going straight to the rink from the airport.”
