RIYADH, 8 February — Prince Saud ibn Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz attended the high-profile prize distribution ceremony of the first ice hockey championship played here under the sponsorship of Power Horse Energy Drink. It was announced duirng the ceremony that Saudi Arabia will shortly be constituting a national ice hockey team — thanks to the joint initiative of Power Horse and Riyadh Voyageurs Club, which are ready to promote this new game in the Kingdom.
Hermann Ritz, country manager for Power Horse energy drink, said: "Power Horse has also signed a contract with RAF Sports Marketing Co. for joint promotion of Saudi national soccer team for all their matches to be played in Saudi Arabia and in the World Cup 2002. The RAF is the official advertising and marketing agent of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation."
Referring to the salient features of the RAF-Power Horse contract, Franz J. Krispel, Power Horse chief executive officer, said:"Our company has joined hands with RAF and Saudi Arabian Football Federation to promote also national team’s friendly matches scheduled for Feb. 13 against Denmark, Feb. 28 against Bulgaria, March 27 against Uruguay, April 21 against Yugoslavia, May 5 against North Ireland and May 9 against Romania respectively."
Krispel said that Power Horse will be displaying their promotional materials around the stadium and will set up points of sales during the matches. As part of their commitment, Power Horse will be contributing to the Saudi football federation one riyal each from every Power Horse energy drink bottles that are sold in the stadium during the matches, he said. This will be applicable on all seven soccer matches that are scheduled until May 9, 2002."
Commenting on Power Horse’s commitment to promote soccer, Ritz said: His company has also arranged prizes for people watching the soccer matches. The winners, to be selected by a raffle, will be given fabulous prizes and the first prize will be three fully paid trips to Japan for three lucky winners to watch the final match of the Saudi team. This will be in addition to two more prizes — one 34" television set and one stereo set as second and third prizes, respectively. Referring to the first ice hockey tournament played here last weekend, Ritz said that a huge presence of Saudi students and youth marked the opening of the ice hockey tournament, indicating a promising future of the game. Ritz, who was joined by Lyle Soetaert, general manager of Riyadh Voyageurs Ice Hockey Club during the press briefing, said that this first annual Power Horse Invitational Tournament commenced with round robin play.
They said that of the four teams, the Bahrain Rangers and Dhahran Falcons finished number 1 and 2. In the first contest, Riyadh A opened the scoring against Bahrain. Tournament’s top scorer Darrin Bunker received a superb pass from right winger Farris Al Jarboa and after 3 attempts finally put the puck past goaltender Jean Boucher. Although Bahrain center Ken King scored several goals with outstanding individual effort, it was not enough to win.
Soetaert said that Riyadh A team never looked back after their first goal and went on to win 7-6. The second contest was a true come-from-behind battle with Dhahran leading the game in the first period 3-1 with pin-point shooting from center Noah Sharif. The second period was a different story and the game became interesting on the ice skating rink of Al-Fal Sports Center here.
Regarding B team, he said, opened the scoring and tournament top goalie Darcy Hamel refused to allow a puck to get past him for the Riyadh B team. Goal by goal, the Riyadh B team chipped away at the Dharan lead in the final minutes of the game, center Kelly Ryan came from behind the net slipping the puck into the Dhahran net to win the game, 4-3.
The stage was no set for a great final between Riyadh A and Riyadh B. As expected, Mike Shepherd, team captain of the Riyadh A team, displayed more of his skills as a goal scorer and continued to display the hardest shot of the tournament. With his quick release and accuracy, he was able to notch five goals in the final. Although, the final score may suggest an offensive battle, defensemen Rich Pearce of the Riyadh A team and Scott Kirk of the Riyadh B team both made crucial plays during the final game, stopping the top tournament scorers.
"The game went back and forth between the two teams, each matching the others scoring," said Soetaert. But the game ended with Riyadh A on the top, 10-8 tournament champions. He said that the increasing interest in ice hockey indicates a promising future for this game, which has been played mainly by expat North American players with a mixture of Europeans in Saudi Arabia. He, however, said that the Gulf nationals have shown great interests in ice hockey.
