William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles the Colombia women’s national team, which won the first IIHF Women’s Development Cup in Kuwait City.
The Colombia women’s national team won the inaugural IIHF Women’s Development Cup in Kuwait City, going undefeated in the six-nation round-robin tournament that ran Nov. 6-12.
Its championship comes six months after the Colombia men’s team won the Development Cup in Fussen, Germany. Colombia, a country without an ice rink, is now 2-0 in tournaments outside of the Americas.
The Colombia women went 5-0 in the tournament, defeating host Kuwait 7-2, Ireland 7-3, Andorra 16-0, United Arab Emirates 14-1 and Luxembourg 4-0.
“This really helps bolster our presence within (Colombia) that this is a true, legitimate that we’re to make it,” said Sam Uisprapassorn, a Colombia coach. “People are going to say, ‘OK, this is not a for-fun sort of exercise that they’re doing.’ We’re taking this seriously, we’re working on developing players and improving the presence of the Colombian Ice Hockey Federation on the global stage.
For the Colombia women to play outside of the continent for the first time and win a championship is a huge accomplishment, said Tina Kampa, a defenseman/forward who was an assistant captain in Kuwait City.
“It was interesting to see where other countries that aren’t in Latin America are hockey-wise and how we stack up against countries that do have ice rinks,” said Kampa, a former Bemidji State University defenseman who was born in Bogota, raised in Minnesota and is director of hockey operations for Dartmouth College’s NCAA Division I women’s team.
“It was really telling, and I just tell our players all the time that I’m proud of them, the work that they put in,” Kampa said. “It’s showing that they’re very committed to the game and that, given the opportunity of ice, the sky’s the limit.”
The Development Cup was established in 2017 for IIHF members unable to compete in the international governing body’s world championships because they don’t meet some of the organization’s regulations, such as having a regulation-size ice rink in-country.
Colombia has been an IIHF associate member since 2019.
The Colombian Ice Hockey Federation has sought to attract government or private investment in a rink in-country by performing well against other Latin American and Caribbean countries and territories in…
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