Turkmenistan President wants national team

[kaiser_matias]

The President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, announced that he wants the country to form a national team and take part in the World Championships. This despite the fact that the country is motly desert and there are only two arenas, one 10,000 seats, the other 1,000, both in the capital, Asghabat.

Now it could just be another example of a repressive, somewhat eccentric, dictator wanting to have a new toy for his country, but I would gladly embrace a Turkmen national team, provided they actually follow through with this whole proposal. Any reason to have more countries playing hockey is good.

Turkmen Leader Demands His Desert Nation Play Ice Hockey

[Conesy]

The only way I can see this happening is if there's enough ethnic Russians in Turkmenistan who'd be able to play

[Steigs]

The standard might not be high, but at least they can start competing if they have enough players to form a league.
....I just hope we don't see another Armenian scenario unfold here.

[Trim]

The standard might not be high, but at least they can start competing if they have enough players to form a league.
....I just hope we don't see another Armenian scenario unfold here.

I agree. Its also possible they would bring players in and go though the normal processes of eligibility while getting IIHF membership, similar to what the Kyrgyz have. Having two arenas would be good for hosting the Challenge Cup of Asia.

As kaiser_matias wrote, any excuse for a national team is a great thing - provided they do it the right way.

[kaiser_matias]

I wouldn't worry about something similar to the Armenian situation happening. Armenia had the benefit of a large diaspora; there is no such issue for Turkmenistan, and there are few ethnic Turkmen outside of the country.

As well, I'm going to assume most people here are not familiar with Turkmenistan or the way its President work. The current President is the second since the country gained independance, and the first one, Saparmurat Niyazov, was pretty much crazy. He established a massive cult of personality, renaming himself Turkmenbashi (Leader of Turkmen), naming days of the week and months after himself and his mother, and building a 50-foot tall golden statue of himself that rotated to face the sun. He also wrote a book about his life and views that became required reading to do anything, including pass a driving test and graduate school.

He died in 2006, and Berdymukhamedov took over. He eliminated some of Niyazov's crazy ideas like the statue and the days/months, but kept up reading of the book and the repression of the country.

There are not a lot of ethnic Russians in the country, but that shouldn't be a big deal. If Berdymukhamedov is serious about this, he can make it happen. Turkmenistan has massive natural gas reserves, so the government has the financial means to do whatever they want.

Hopefully they are serious about this and follow through.

[Salavat]

Yeh definitely will be good to see another new national team playing ice hockey and with that big stadium recently opened they have the means to host a good tournament.

And would it be possible to change this forums name from "Middle East" to "Middle East and Central Asia". It would give a much clearer spot for countries like kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and now Turkmenistan. I think this has been asked a couple of times before but I figure another request cant hurt

[Murach86]

There`s a short message at a german sportwebsite:

In the desert country of Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has commanded the establishment of its own hockey league. State enterprises and ministries have to establish teams. With the revenue from gas sales will also occur in several halls.

[GeoffH]

I've also asked for a name change in the past but can't get anyone to respond. I'd like to see 'West and Central Asia' which would be the same terminology as the IOC and IIHF. The term 'Middle East' is too vague and certainly not politically correct these days.

Geoff

Yeh definitely will be good to see another new national team playing ice hockey and with that big stadium recently opened they have the means to host a good tournament.

And would it be possible to change this forums name from "Middle East" to "Middle East and Central Asia". It would give a much clearer spot for countries like kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and now Turkmenistan. I think this has been asked a couple of times before but I figure another request cant hurt

[Graham]

There are only so many characters that we can fit on our front page for each sub-forum heading. Unfortunately, "Middle East and Central Asia" and "West and Central Asia" won't fit in.

Graham.

[GeoffH]

Thanks Graham, how about W & C Asia, I notice that some of the other headings are getting truncated these days. Could have S & SE Asia as well for consistency and clarity.

Geoff

There are only so many characters that we can fit on our front page for each sub-forum heading. Unfortunately, "Middle East and Central Asia" and "West and Central Asia" won't fit in.

Graham.

[S_Berish90]

Leader demands ice hockey for desert state Turkmenistan- BBC Article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17711959

[Jazz]

....As kaiser_matias wrote, any excuse for a national team is a great thing - provided they do it the right way.

Could not agree more.
It seems a bit frustrating that Ice Hockey seems to be falling behind other sports in entering 'new countries (markets) and setting up shop' so this news which is against that trend is welcome.

[rowan]

Hallo,

I found this on internet.


New season of starts of Turkmenistan’s ice-hockey players

23.10.2012

The open championship of the sport school of the State Committee for sports on hockey started in the capital’s Sport Complex for winter sports. Four teams – “Burgut” of Turkmenistan’s State Committee for sports, “Oguz han” of “Turkmengaz” State Concern, “Alp Arslan” of the sphere of transport and communications and “Galkan” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkmenistan participate in the competitions timed to the 21st anniversary of Turkmenistan’s independence.

“Oguz han” and “Alp Arslan” teams have met in the first match of the championship, which is held in round robin. The meeting completed with heavy advantage of hockey players of “Oguz han” team, who gained convincing victory.

Competitions will go on until October 26.


Greetings,
rowan

[GeoffH]

Wow !!! I just keep smiling at the thought of Soviet-style bureaucrats having to learn hockey to please their President !!!!

Hopefully I'm being too cynical.

Geoff

[Heatleysucks]

New season of starts of Turkmenistan’s ice-hockey players

23.10.2012

The open championship of the sport school of the State Committee for sports on hockey started in the capital’s Sport Complex for winter sports. Four teams – “Burgut” of Turkmenistan’s State Committee for sports, “Oguz han” of “Turkmengaz” State Concern, “Alp Arslan” of the sphere of transport and communications and “Galkan” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkmenistan participate in the competitions timed to the 21st anniversary of Turkmenistan’s independence.

“Oguz han” and “Alp Arslan” teams have met in the first match of the championship, which is held in round robin. The meeting completed with heavy advantage of hockey players of “Oguz han” team, who gained convincing victory.

Competitions will go on until October 26.

This communique sounds like it was written by Borat!

[Salavat]

Apparently the Turkmenistan President's Cup is on right now. Article from Yahoo Sports, compliments of the National Teams of Ice Hockey website, mentions how a UAE under-17 lost 0-60 to a Russian under-17 team. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...8303--nhl.html

[fan75]

http://www.turkmenistan.gov.tm/_eng/?id=1893

[maits]

I found the result on a russian kidshockey forum.

HC Oguzkhan		11 - 7	8 - 1	31 - 4	9
HC Silver Lions St. Petersburg	7 - 11		3 - 2	60 - 0	6
HC Raubichi-96	1 - 8	2 - 3		22 - 0	3
United Arab Emirates	4 - 31	0 - 60	0 - 22		0

HC Khimik Moscow Oblast		4 - 2	4 - 5	24 - 0	7
HC Neftyanik Almetyevsk	2 - 4		6 - 3	32 - 0	6
Galkan HC	5 - 4	3 - 6		21 - 0	5
Turkey junior team	0 - 24	0 - 32	0 - 21		0

Semi-finals
HC Oguzkhan 9 - 4 HC Neftyanik
HC Silver Lions 2 - 3 HC Khimik wins with bullits.

5/6 placement game
Galkan HC 7 - 5 HC Raubichi-96

Bronze medal game
HC Neftyanik 5 - 3 HC Silver Lions

Final game
HC Khimik 3 - 1 HC Oguzkhan

[Hockey_Algeria]

UAE got beat 60-0? wow

A goal a minute?

Has anyone heard of a score higher than that?

[Graham]

Has anyone heard of a score higher than that?

South Korea beat Thailand 92-0 in the 1998 u18 Asia-Oceania Championships.

Slovakia beat Bulgaria 82-0 in the Women's Olympic Qualifiers in 2008 after outshot them 139-0. Bulgaria lost 41-0 to Italy, 30-1 to Croatia and 39-0 to Latvia in their other games. They were outshot 367-9 in the tournament.

Those are the highest international scores for men and women.

Graham.

[maits]

Surprisingly strong performance from Turkmenistan teams. Unfortunately I couldn´t find the teams rosters.

[-Helix-]

According to Puck Daddy the Turkmenistan roster was mostly Russian kids. They hardly played the local kids.

[Geoff]

I read that piece too. They played their Russians, got a big lead, and when they put in the Turkmens it made the game competitive and UAE started to score. They put the Russians back in and the final score was run up to 31-4.

[pedalinka]

WTF !!!!!!!!!!!! new arena in Turkmenistan

http://www.yazgandesign.com/image.ph...C3%BC-b(1).jpg

http://www.polimeks.com/images/proje...Arenasi/5b.jpg

[Hockey_Algeria]

looks very nice, love the islamic design in there

[Oz]

Here's some more pics from Turkmenistan's president Cup


and

[Turan Valiyev]

that is great:)

[GeoffH]

Some interesting news, maybe they will be applying to join the IIHF soon ;

http://nationalteamsoficehockey.gree...3_2012/Blog210

[Steigs]

Ok... which Minsk club was it, and what age group?
Seems to me that a Turkmen national U20 team isn't going to be beating Dynamo Minsk's U20 team by any score, nevermind that one. Had to be a lower-level, maybe lower-age-group Belarussian squad.

[maits]

Minsk team boys were 13 years old as I read from russian newspapers.

[Davide]

http://eurohockey.com/article/3254-g...kmenistan.html

[Vicente]

Is there any schedule with all the results of Turkmenistan league?

[Davide]

Is there any schedule with all the results of Turkmenistan league?

I'm trying to collect them from Turkmenistan news agency, but they wrote about league very randomly

[rowan]

HC Galkan wins MIA Hockey Cup
01.06.2014

The Turkmenistan MIA Hockey Cup was held in Ashgabat. Six teams participating in the tournament were divided into 2 groups. Group A consisted of HC Galkan of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, HC Oguzhan of Turkmengaz State Concern and HC Alp Arslan of Turkmenhowayollary State National Service. Group B consisted of HC Nesil of the Institute of Internal Affairs, Ashgabat HC of the sports school of the State Committee for Sports, HC Sir of the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of Turkmenistan.

HC Galkan won a decisive victory over their opponents - HC Nesil in the final. The gold medallists of the first national championship in 2013-2014 shot 5 pucks in the opponents' net and HC Nesil scored one goal in the game.



It should be noted that HC Galkan returned from Minsk, where they had been invited by President of Belarus Aleksander Lukashenko as the guests of the World Hockey Championship. The Turkmen sportsmen watched the exciting matches and held a series of friendly matches with the major Belarusian hockey clubs, which served as a good gaming practice to further improve the skills of our players.

The 'irreconcilable' opponents - the finalists of the 2nd Turkmenistan President's Hockey HC Sir and HC Oguzhan - played in the third-place match. As in the tournament, the swift 'lions' confirmed their superiority with the crushing score 9-2.


Greetings,
Rowan












e;255721]Is there any schedule with all the results of Turkmenistan league?[/QUOTE]

[maits]

National Flag Day of Turkmenistan ice hockey cup. 10 - 14 February 2015.

Semi-finals
Galkan 11 - 1 Shir
Nesil 10 - 2 Oguzkhan

Bronze medal game
Shir 6 - 4 Oguzkhan

Final
Galkan 8 - 5 Nesil

Other teams were Vatanchi, Alp Arslan, Burgut and Merdana.
Preliminary round was divided into two groups and two best places advanced to semi-finals.

[GeoffH]

National Flag Day of Turkmenistan ice hockey cup. 10 - 14 February 2015.

Semi-finals
Galkan 11 - 1 Shir
Nesil 10 - 2 Oguzkhan

Bronze medal game
Shir 6 - 4 Oguzkhan

Final
Galkan 8 - 5 Nesil

Other teams were Vatanchi, Alp Arslan, Burgut and Merdana.
Preliminary round was divided into two groups and two best places advanced to semi-finals.

Good news. Anybody heard anything about the plans for a national team ? An IIHF application ?

Geoff

[maits]

I did some research in Google and it seems that Turkmenistan has been signed a cooperation and ice hockey development between Belarussian Ice Hockey Federation in 27. March 2015. Belarussians will help them to apply an IIHF membership if I understand russian correctly.
Here is the news link from Belarussian Ice Hockey Federation:
http://hockey.by/news/news-federation/6113.html

[Davide]

good news for the development of hockey in the country: Turkmenistan was admitted as associate member of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

[Davide]

The third edition of Turkmenistan League started in January with 6 teams partecipating:

Reigning champion HC Galkan HC
Shire
Oguzhan
Nesil
Vatanchi
Alp Arslan

After 5 rounds this is the table
Galkan HC 15 points
Shire 12
Nesil 9
Oguzhan 6
Vatanchi 3
Alp Arslan 0

[GeoffH]

Hopefully they'll enter either the AWG or the CCoA next year. A six team league sounds impressive.

Geoff

The third edition of Turkmenistan League started in January with 6 teams partecipating:

Reigning champion HC Galkan HC
Shire
Oguzhan
Nesil
Vatanchi
Alp Arslan

After 5 rounds this is the table
Galkan HC 15 points
Shire 12
Nesil 9
Oguzhan 6
Vatanchi 3
Alp Arslan 0

[GeoffH]

Latest news of games in Turkmenistan ahead of them hopefully making their WC debut

https://japan.tmembassy.gov.tm/en/news/9185