Zoltán Kovás of the HUngarian Ice Hockey Federation talk to icehockey.hu about the new inovate sport that is comeing up in the hockey world.
“There are more than 30 small sized rinks in operation in Hungary, there are 10-12 in Budapest with the rest of them spread throughout the country in places like Nyíregyháza, Berettyóúfalu, Eger, Hódmezővásárhely, Makó, Ajka, Baja, Szarvas, Szentes, Hatvan, Veresegyház, Tát, Tata, Várpalota, Veszprém, Sopron, Szekszárd, and Kiskőrös. We would like to have these towns more involved in Hungarian hockey” said Zoltán Kovács.
“A set of rules and regulations need to be drawn up and from there we can take the next steps in setting up an adult league and a youth league, with regards to geography there could be regional divisions which would ease the teams from the travel standpoint, with possibly a Budapest final. If there are enough clubs interested then a tournament could be started by January-February of 2016.
If this sport comes to fruition that means that kids that have outgrown the U10 age group and can't find a new club will not have to stop playing hockey since they can play on the smaller sized ice surface sport.”
This idea can be most closely compared to three on three half court basketball which is now under the FIBA umbrella, the U18 3x3 world championships were held this past year in Debrecen. The sport also has a world tour series which had multiple stops in various cities throughout the world, for example in Abu Dhabi.
“With regards to the idea of three on three hockey I turned to the IIHF to making this a legitimate sport with in the international hockey world, maybe taking a page from FIBA, this idea could take a foothold.”