For the first time in 18 years there will be a European flavour to the Richmond Bantam Midget Hockey Tournament.
The Hungarian U16 national team will be competing in the Midget Major Division. The last European entry in the Richmond Minor Hockey hosted tournament were teams from Belarus and Germany back in 1999. This year’s 36th annual event takes place Dec. 26-Dec. 31 and will feature 72 teams in six divisions. The Richmond Ice Centre, Minoru Arenas and Richmond Olympic will all hosts games.
Longtime tournament director Wendy Steadman said the Hungarian team had reached out to a tournament sponsor — West Coast Prep Camp — looking for a competition in B.C. over the holidays.
The team is coached by Glen Williamson, a former scout with the Los Angeles Kings and assistant coach with the Winnipeg Jets, who has served as National Team Development and Program Mentor for the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation since 2012. Last year, he guided the Hungary team to top honours at annual Kamloops International Bantam Ice Hockey Tournament (KIBIHT), becoming just the third European team to skate to victory in the event’s 48-year history.
In Richmond, they will be part of what is expected to be a highly-competitive Major Midget Division with teams from the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League, the Canadian School Sport Hockey League and beyond.
“We are very excited to have them,” said Steadman. “We are hoping to get the word out the community early and they will get some support behind them since they are such a long way from home.”
Hungary will tune-up up for the tournament with an exhibition game against Alaska on Boxing Day.
The Richmond International continues to grow with three tiers now being offered at the Bantam level — an age group that was added three years ago.
“We did it for a couple of reasons,” added Steadman. “It gives us more (Richmond Minor) teams which means additional parent help for a tournament of this size. Scouts also suggested it would be really good to have a Bantam Division so they could watch those games too.
“We also have out-of-town associations that are now bringing two teams here. In some instances they have the same coach for both teams and we coordinate (the round-robin) schedule around that.”
In total, a whopping 195 games will be played over the six days.
