The India Hockey 360 festival was North American hockey’s latest collaboration with the world’s most populous country, which has 2,554 male and female players, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Canadian women’s six-time Olympian Hailey Wickenheiser and retired NHL defenseman Andrew Ference In January 2018 traveled with the group to Ladakh, India at 12,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas to help showcase the sport.
They came away with 70 complete sets of gear through the NHL Players’ Association’s Goals & Dreams, which supports grassroots hockey programs by providing complete sets of new gear to deserving youth.
At Wickenheiser’s invitation, members of India’s first national women’s ice hockey team traveled to Canada in November 2018 to participate. Wickenheiser World Women’s Hockey Festival in Airdrie, Alberta.
The festival comes as the country hopes to raise its hockey profile internationally. India has been a member of the IIHF since 27 April 1989, but its men’s and women’s national teams are currently unranked.
Their men’s, women’s and boys’ under-20 teams will compete in IIHF World Championship tournaments for the first time starting in 2027 in the hockey governing body’s Division IV.
“With Randeep and Hari coming in, now I have the vision to engage with them and get some coaching experts coming to India for that,” Singh said. “Even if, say, Harry comes in for a month and we camp, I told him, “You shouldn’t come to Chandigarh, you should go straight from the airport to the skating rink.”