Istanbul waits 20 years for first faceoff
The Turkish U-18 and U-20 national teams began practicing at the new rink, located at Silivrikapı in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, during the last two weeks of December, and the rink is expected to open to all teams and skaters after the IIHF U-20 Division III men's ice hockey championship concludes.
"Everybody is excited about the new rink. Everybody wants to take the ice and is ready to work," said Oktay Yavuzarslan, an ice hockey coach in Istanbul.
Quest for a rink
Plans for a rink in Istanbul have existed since 1989, according to Yavuzarslan and his fellow skating coach Amil Akbulut, who said the Turkish Ice Skating Federation approached the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality at the time and convinced it to abandon plans for an Olympic-sized swimming pool in favor of a rink.
The Fatih Municipality provided the current Zeytinburnu site shortly thereafter, but problems arose, said Yavuzarslan, who is a coach for the Boğaziçi Patinaj ice hockey club and a former coach of the Turkish U-18 national team. The government was "afraid to give enough money" for a "different and difficult" project for Turkey, said Yavuzarslan, adding that planning and construction proceeded at a slow pace and administrators "did not know how to run" construction of an ice rink.
Then, just as construction neared completion, Istanbul experienced its most devastating earthquake in recent history. After the 1999 earthquake, a group from Istanbul Technical University, or İTÜ, prepared a report evaluating the facility and deemed it unsafe for future disasters. The existing structure was demolished, and the project was left unfunded and abandoned for years, said Akbulut, who has coached the Turkish national figure skating team and hundreds of skaters in his career including many Turkish state champions.
Finally, with pressure from the ice skating community and money from the central government in Ankara, plans to build another rink at the Zeytinburnu site accelerated in 2007, and construction of a more structurally sound facility was completed in October 2009.
Briefly opened but no management
The Silivrikapı Ice Skating Hall, which has both an 1,740 square-meter Olympic rink seating 900 and a 600 square-meter surface seating 200, opened briefly Oct. 14-18 to host the International ISU Bosphorus Junior Grand Prix, a figure skating competition featuring 105 athletes from 34 countries. The rink, however, was then immediately closed for lack of management and staff.
The Turkish Ice Hockey Federation joined the Turkish Ice Skating Federation in December to form a delegation to visit the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and facilitate the opening of the finished but dormant rink. The delegation visited Municipality General Secretary Adem Baştürk, who was happy to learn that the federations were supporting the opening and promised to have it operating before January.
The delegation also met Alpaslan Baki Ertekin, general manager of Spor A.Ş., a company that runs several Istanbul sports complexes and expects to take over the new rink. The parties discussed the training of personnel by employees of a rink in İzmit, capital of Kocaeli province in northwestern Turkey. Ertekin said the facility would open as soon as the Municipality Building Works office handed it over to Spor A.Ş., and the company expects to name a manager and staff to control technical operations after the IIHF tournament.
Coaches waiting, ready to work
Now that the rink is completed, ice athletes in Turkey enthusiastically anticipate the opening. "Every coach is waiting, every coach is happy now; nobody wants the rink to stay closed," said Yavuzarslan, who has coached the Boğaziçi Patinaj club for four years.
"Before, all teams were practicing at shopping mall rinks, but this was not enough, not professional," he said. Playing hockey at shopping centers can create problems since the rinks are only a fraction of the size of a normal rink. Players cannot shoot or play with real nets, do not have locker rooms, and sometimes play in the dark after the mall closes. The limited space creates competition for time on available ice and conflict between coaches and rink managers over ice conditions.
"Ice hockey teams were traveling up to six hours for matches in Ankara," according to Cem Sayın, a player for the Istanbul Buz Kartallar, or İBK, ice hockey club. "Now they can play them in Istanbul."
Sadık Tüfekçi, coach of İBK, said his team is excited for the new ice. He said he believes the opening of the rink will "contribute to more powerful teams in Istanbul, more players, more successful Turkish national teams" and of course, "more practice time."
Akbulut said the new rink will attract more figure skaters in Istanbul and "will allow Turkey to rise in international winter sports competition." He said the recent uncertainty about the rink's management was a problem, but after it opens, it can serve as an “example for other cities in Turkey that wish to build ice facilities."
Alev Kahraman, a figure skating coach who has worked on shopping mall rinks for eight years, said she wants to move to the new facility but is waiting for "definitive management" before she can begin teaching students there. "All the figure skaters are working in small rinks, and the big rink will be really good for them," she said
LIAM HARDY
04.01.2010
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