Geography. Recently managed to “open” a new continent, Africa, is just putting on skates kids Somali community in the Swedish town of Borlänge. And in other countries to send their teams to participate in the World Cup at the group B hockey – the lot of small groups of amateur enthusiasts.
One of the youngest federations in Europe is the Czech. For the first time the hockey world learned that they were in the Czech Republic “bendisty” in 2014 when they took part in a mini-tournament organized in Davos, Switzerland. The team consists of the former “shaybistov” too keen about the new exotic for Czech sport. Chairman of the Federation became Miroslav Samek, and the head coach – Pavel Hlavacek. In the absence of a large field for this Bandy, the guys have to train and play in small venues, hockey boxes.
The Czechs were declared for 2016 World Cup in Ulyanovsk, where from 10 to 14 February will be played the tournament in Group B Czech players seriously counting on a successful debut. However, recently the team was faced with the challenges of the past: in January 2016 it became known that it was negotiated with potential sponsors.
However, the Czechs did not panic and took advantage of crowdfunding. On the Czech Startovač.cz the platform was announced for a trip to the World Cup. At the time of the launch in the checkout was only 136 kronor (about 400 Russian rubles). The entire delegation consists of 22 people, but those who can afford it, fly to Ulyanovsk at his own expense. The rest rely on crowdfunding.
Donations were not long in coming: the first donor was the hockey player Ondřej Vala. Another responded to HC “Knights of Kladno”, helped with the purchase of equipment. “Kladno” – native command Jaromir Jagr, now owned two-thirds of the representatives Jagr family. There were tools and by commercial organizations. Information support to the project was the media: newspaper town Ceska Lipa, a local radio station.
The largest contribution is come from overseas – a former goalkeeper of Team USA hockey, played for the club “Amur Tigers” from Minneapolis 53-year-old Steve Dzhecha translated EEK 2,500. Initially, Steve wanted to go to the tournament as part of the Czech national team, but did not get a visa.