The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF)

Many of us are very familiar with the NHL (National Hockey League) that is playing its 2012 Stanley Cup Championship at this time. It is mainly a non-profit organization consisting of 30 hockey leagues that covers Canada and the United States. However, the IIHF is the governing body of ice hockey and in-line hockey worldwide. Founded in 1908 and head quartered in Zurich, Switzerland this body consist of 70 members (51 full members, 16 associate members and three affiliate members). Its main responsibility is to manage international ice hockey tournaments. Only full members have the voting rights. Associates members may not have a national body that deals with ice hockey issues in the country and affiliate members only participate in in-line hockey.

IIHF presides over the ice hockey games at the Olympics and conducts World Championship games. Additionally, it also organizes the European club championship.

Despite its worldwide responsibility, IIHF has minimal control over the NHL which is the more prominent control authority in ice hockey in North America. However, IIHF has more power over ice hockey in the Europe.

Even with a powerful NHL organization, the IIHF continues to function as the international coordination agency for the sport.

2012 All-Star NHL Game

The 2012 All-Star NHL game, an exhibition ice hockey game, which is held at the midway point of the season, will be held on Saturday, January 26, 2012 in Ottawa. The All-Star fantasy draft will be held on Thursday before the Saturday game.

All-Star games began before the modern NHL. The very first game was held on January 2, 1908 in Montreal Arena as a benefit to a player who drowned several months before. Most of the subsequent games were also held to benefit players. The official All-Star game was held during the 1947-48 season for the first time and is continuing to date. The current format of the game, held during the mid-way point of the season, started in 1966.

Ice hockey fan ballots and the NHL Hockey Operations Department select a pool of players to pick for the All-Star game. The captain and the assistant will pick the players from the pool.

The 2012 Team Chara will be captained by Boston’s Zdeno Chara and assisted by Toronto’s Joffrey Lupul. The Team Alfredsson will be captained by Ottawa’s D. Alfredsson and assisted by NY Rangers Henrik Lundquist.

The current All-Star game benefits the player’s pension fund.

Ex NHL player Wade Belak is dead

Former Maple Leaves enforcer Wade Belak was found dead in his hotel room in Toronto on the 31 of August. He was 35 years of age at the time of death. No cause of death was released though foul play was ruled out.

Belak was a popular player in the NHL circuit. He was born in Saskatoon in 1976 and began his NHL career in 1996 with the Colorado Avalanche and continued with the Calgary Flames for two years from 1998- 2001 and played for the Toronto Maples from 2001 to 2008. He played for the Florida panthers for a couple of years and was with the Nashville Predators until his retirement from the NHL in March 2011.

At the time of his death he was in Toronto to take part in The Battle of the Blades, a popular CBS competition he has just signed up to do.

His tragic death follows the deaths of fellow NHL players Derek Boogaard of the New York Rangers who died in May this year of an accidental over dose of prescription medication and alcohol and Winnipeg Jets Rick Rypien who died on 15 August this year from an unknown cause of death, though suicide is suspected.

AARON ROME SUSPENDED FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2011 NHL PLAYOFFS

The Vancouver Canucks’ defenseman Aaron Rome has been suspended for the rest of the year following a hit to Boston Bruins forward Nathan Horton.

Nathan Horton will also miss the rest of the season because the injuries he sustained. He was delivered a late hit by Rome after he delivered the puck. The puck traveled 15 feet and Winger Milan Lucic had time to stickhandle it when Rome delivered a shoulder to helmet hit on Horton who was watching the progress of the pass.

Commentators are applauding this decision as this will be deterrent to future incidents like this. Similar incidents which caused concussions cut short the careers of Eric Lindros, Pat Lafontain and players loke Sidney Crosby and Marc Savard are in danger of facing the same fate and hopefully Horton will not be joining that list.

Rome will miss four games of the Stanley Cup final and this is the first time a player has been given such a harsh penalty and it has come just in time to preserve the honor of the NHL and hopefully a lesson will be learnt from this.

Ponikarovsky heads to L.A.

Alexei Ponikarovsky signed a $3 million deal with the Los Angeles Kings today. However, the Kings will not be jumping for joy over this as the Ukrainian was more or less the second or third choice.

The first choice for the Kings was of course Ilya Kovalchuk. The problem for the team was that Kovalchuk was not willing to settle for any old paycheck. Since Dean Lombardi, the Kings’ General Manager, had decide that he was not going to pay exorbitant salaries to any player, Kovalchuk eventually went off to the New Jersey Devils. The contract with the Devils is an NHL record setter; Kovalchuk is set stay with the Devils for 17 years and will be paid $102 million in that period.

However, a quick investigation by the NHL has concluded that the contract has circumvented the imposed salary caps and therefore has been deemed null and void. Kovalchuk has immediately returned to negotiations with the Devils as the team seems to be his first choice.

Lombardi’s decision to go with Ponikarovsky is not bad in retrospect. The Ukrainian has scored more than 20 goals in the last five seasons and has the potential to give the Kings some bit in their attack. The decision is also solid in the sense that Lombardi wants to spend his resources on getting back homegrown talent who have been signed up by rival teams. But if the Devil’s deal with Kovalchuk does fall through, there is a strong possibility that Lombardi will make a bid for the forward.