Ice Hockey will debut at 2017 Southeast Asian Games

The 29th Southeast Asian Games, hosted by Malaysia in 2017 will feature five additional sports, included, for the first time, two winter sports: icehockey and ice skating (the latter included figure skating and short track) as confirmed last June 4th in the SEAGF Executive Committee meeting held in Singapore.To stage a sport at the Southeast Asian Games, the rules require participants from at least four National Olympic Committees. It's still uncertain which countries will compete in icehockey. The Games involving participants from the 11 countries of Southeast Asia. Between them, only Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have a regular hockey activity and compete in Challenge Cup of Asia as IIHF members. Philippines and Indonesia are countries where hockey is played randomly and along with Vietnam could fill the last mandatory spot.

"We realised we've never had winter sports at the SEA Games even though we have athletes competing at the Winter Olympic Games and other international competitions," said Chris Chan, secretary general of the Singapore National Olympic Council at The Straits Times newspaper - "So we thought maybe we can include a few winter sports that are more popular in the region, and ice hockey and ice skating were the obvious choices."

"The reason for lobbying the two sports is we've constructed three big ice-skating rinks in Kuala Lumpur, and we've taken part in the Asian Games and on an international level," he added." said Sieh Kok Chi, secretary-general of the Malaysian NOC

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