Skåne isn’t particularly famed for its ice hockey prowess, but that hasn’t stopped a group of students forming their own team and entering the regional Korpen league, with try-outs to be held in Malmö tonight.
“Hallands and Lunds nations have been playing in teams every Tuesday and Wednesday for two or three seasons now, meeting small teams from Lund or Skåne. We wanted to take this forward and expand it,” explains Psychology student and one of the founding players, Anders Rydström.
“We have been doing a lot to raise awareness. We have been promoting the team through facebook and have had players and posters at events and around town. So hopefully we get a good turn out,” continues Anders.
If all does go well the players will move past the friendly inter-nation matches and progress to a much more competitive, league based system. But Anders hopes this won’t distract from the real reason most people play the sport:
“Obviously it would be great to win the league but the main goal is just to get a good team together and have some fun on the ice. Although it will be a definite highlight if we beat the LTH team, I would say they are our big rivals.”
Continuing this theme of camaraderie, the new team have decided to move away from the stereotypical screaming drill-sergeant coach and take a different approach:
“There isn’t really a coach right now. We have no definite plans for that. It’s going to be a unified team on and off the ice so I think we will meet and make the decisions together.”
Whether this utopian “democracy on ice” is realised should become more apparent after this evening’s trials, with all who are interested welcome to attend.
