DEB-Brochure as a basis for joint work on integration - exercises to simplify - ice hockey is diverse and tolerant
Ice hockey is diverse - and that is why the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund is committed to ensuring that clubs become more interculturally open. The DEB also shows practical ways to do this and offers the clubs support. It is against this background that Guidebook “Hockey is Variety” was created, a brochure that also serves as the basis for future joint work with other national ice hockey associations. The “Growing the Game Fund” project, initiated with the support of the IIHF world association, was completed this summer and the guide is intended as a result in international workshops on the topic of integration and diversity be integrated.
Ice hockey, like sport in general, can assist with integration, can overcome boundaries and build bridges. With “Hockey is Variety” he wants to DEB contribute a bit to that increased participation in the world around the puck for all people in Germany is possible, especially for people with a migration background, women, girls and LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Trans- and Intersexual, Queer People, i.e. all people who do not identify with a hetero-normative lifestyle).
The brochure describes practical examples and exercisesHow you can simplify club work when there are cultural differences, for example in language or mentality. At the same time, it is an inventory, a collection of information and methods as well as a concrete guideline for action for the association's work, because one thing is important to emphasize: the greater the knowledge and awareness of the possibilities for integration, the better it will be successful.
The “Hockey is Variety” initiative exists since the beginning of 2017 in cooperation with the state sports associations and tries first and foremost to create awareness of the issue of integration and discrimination, especially in ice hockey. The DEB wants to promote an intercultural opening of clubs in Germany and show together that the sport of ice hockey stands for diversity, cosmopolitanism and tolerance – and that racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia and any other kind of discrimination have no place in our ice rinks.
Julia Eisenrieder, DEB-Project management “Hockey is variety”: “Diversity has been actively practiced in German sports clubs and also in our ice hockey clubs for many years. This often happens all by itself and is not consciously noticed. In order to support this process and show how a club-related intercultural opening can look like and succeed, we have created this guide. With Bad Nauheim as a DOSB base club as part of the 'Integration through Sport' project and an impressive example of how diversity can be lived and implemented in the club, we also want to motivate and encourage other clubs to become more interculturally open, so that diversity in ice hockey can be even better.”
Click here for the guidebook “Hockey is Variety”.
(Photo: Dominic Pencz)