This weekend icehockey.hu sat down and had a converation with Frank Gonzalez IIHF council member, for this weekends long read. Mr. Gonzalez happens to be in Miskolc this weekend for the Group B competition of the IIHF where he is representing the IIHF and to also watch his son play for Jaca.
What role are you filling here in Miskolc for Group B of the Continental Cup?
I have been invited by the organizing committee to come and of course there is a Spanish team here at the competition for which my son is also playing for. I am also following up on the actual Continental Cup for the IIHF as this is one of our flagship events.
What is your current position with the IIHF these days?
I am a council member of the IIHF and also the chairman of the facilities committee.
How did you become a member of the IIHF?
After refereeing for twelve seasons in Spain I became a delegate that represented Spain at the IIHF. In 2003 I became a council member and have been ever since.
What has it been to represent a non traditional hockey nation at the IIHF in Spain?
The importance is that we are developing hockey nation and this helps to bring to light what the IIHF has to do to help support the sport in other developing countries like Spain. The sport is getting bigger in Spain and we have had players who have played well aboard, the Jaca goalie (Ander Alcaine) was in the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect camp a couple years ago and was the rookie of the French league. My son (Pol Gonzalez) played college hockey in Canada and we have someone playing NCAA hockey for Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
We have players developing and more and more are moving abroad to gain experience. In Spain we have an amateur league but it is great for guys to come over from North America after playing college hockey and getting a taste European hockey. I think that I can add the knowledge of what developing nations are all about.
What is in store for Spanish hockey in five or ten years?
I just became president of the ice sports federation, we have 1,200 licenced hockey players and this covers women's and youth players as well. Right now our biggest obstacle is getting arenas built. We are trying to get more built and with more arenas we can develope more hockey players.
Does the brand image that is associated with FC Barcelona help promote the FC Barcelona ice hockey team or are teams like Jaca a strictly hockey team better off?
It can work both ways, if the Barcelona club puts their knowledge and experience towards the hockey team that can really help them, right now Nike is involved with the club, so the hockey teams gets support from them like that. The handball, football, inline and basketball teams get more of the support. The idea of the ice hockey team becoming a pro team did come up but in the end they decided against that.
With Jaca and other smaller towns the local government and the regional governments are supporting the teams. Right now we have a really balanced league, we have a five team league with the teams about three points separating them. Our national team roster is very young right now, we are really trying to develop them so this is good for the league as well.
What can you tell us about yourself, you played your junior years in Canada?
I was born in Barcelona and moved to Canada when I was nine years old. At the age of 21 I moved back to Spain to play football for FC Barcelona as a junior. I played high school basketball and hockey was just something I did for fun, after football didn’t work out I went back to Canada to play Junior B hockey and later Senior A for a couple of months until I moved back to Spain to play hockey. I was on the first national team in 1977 and played in the world championships. Later I became a league official because the top senior league was suspended for two years, only U20 players were allowed to play. Later on I moved on to the federation and the IIHF as I mentioned before.
What is it like to watch your son play here in Miskolc?
It is always a treat, we don’t spend too much time with him, so this is nice right now.Clearly he is with the team so we only see him for a couple of minutes. He wasn't playing for his university this season, this opportunity came up to play for Jaca so he came over.