The Great Blizzards of Massachusetts have officially opened registration for the most important special hockey tournament in the world - SHI Boston 2025 - the showcase annual event for Special Hockey International! April 24-26, 2025 at the prestigious Lovell Arena in Rockland, MA. For more information and to register, see www.shiboston2025.org or contact info@shiboston2025.org. Our friends from the Baltimore Saints were the first to register their two teams this morning and the entire Great Blizz team is excited to spend another weekend with our buds from Charm City! Last year, The Great Blizz hosted 500 special hockey players and 125 of their coaches. Plus all their families and friends. And we could not have done it without support from our organizing committee, parents/guardians from all the teams, generous sponsors, Lovell Arena and its Lovell Academy staff and students, and more. See you in EIGHT months!
SHI are delighted to announce that The Great Blizzards of Massachusetts Special Hockey Inc will be hosting the Special Hockey tournament at the fabulous Lovelll Arena April 24-26 2025. Special Hockey International (SHI) and The Great Blizzards of Massachusetts Special Hockey are excited to announce today that the SHI annual tournament will return to Lovell Arena for SHI Boston 2025 on April 24-26, 2025. Registration will open by August 1st when the tournament website www.shiboston2025.org goes live. This highly-acclaimed three-day, four-game international tournament for players with special needs will take place in Rockland, MA, some 20 miles south of the hockey-rich city of Boston. This year’s event attracted nearly 500 athletes and 125 coaches from around the world, from the United Kingdom to Canada to across the United States, bringing SHI to life for the first time since 2019 due to COVID. The first SHI tournament took place in 1994. "Tournament Director Steve Nearman and his committee revived the SHI Tournament in 2024 with great success and all the trimmings - exciting Opening Ceremonies, music and games in the arena, and more!” said Lorraine Whaley, President of the HADC Gladiators Hockey Club from Toronto. “Impressively well organized, informed and fun volunteers, and more!
We are delighted to announce that registration for the next SHI Tournament is now OPEN! Get ready for a fun-packed International Special Ice Hockey event! From April 25 – April 27 , this exciting tournament will be held in the historic city of Boston, bringing together sixty teams from around the globe. This year the tournament will showcase the new Lovell Arena, a state-of-the-art facility located just 20 miles south of Boston in Rockland MA. Additionally, games will be played at the Mark Bavis Arena adding even more excitement to the tournament! Mark Bavis Arena is also located in Rockland, 1 1/2 miles from Lovell. Convenience! Hosted by The Great Blizzards of Massachusetts, an inclusive ice hockey club based on the South Shore and Cape Cod, each team will play four games between 25th – 27th April. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to info@shiboston2024.org To register for the 2024 tournament, please click here.
We are delighted to announce that The Great Blizzards of Massachusetts Special Hockey will host the next SHI Tournament from April 25th -27th 2024. SHI Boston 2024 will be played on three sheets of ice at the brand-new state-of-the-art Lovell Arena, located in Rockland, just 20 miles south of Boston. Details of the rink can be found at The Lovell Arena If your club is interested in attending this fun-packed three-day international tournament, please email coachnearms@thegreatblizz.org for more information. Early indications of interest would be greatly appreciated for planning reasons, so please don’t hesitate to register your interest!
Ice Hockey returned to Streatham Ice rink as the Werewolves of London Special Ice Hockey club were able to take to the ice under the latest government guidance. It was our first opportunity to use the rink dividers bought as part of our ‘Sticking it to COVID’ initiative funded in partnership with the National Lottery Community fund. It allows us to split the ice and work in COVID safe groups as well as help in focusing areas of the ice for different drills. Our sessions are now back to the more familiar fortnightly Saturday 16:30 to 18:30 time slots (first hour U18, second hour Over 18 as per current guidance). Although traditionally we would be coming to the end of our season in May, our season has been extended to the end of June to allow our players the opportunity to make up for the lost ice time and to come back to the rink and training when they feel comfortable to do so as restrictions ease. To find out more about Streatham Ice Rink, please click here.
Recently, SHI teams, Nova Cool Cats and SPICE JETS, have been amusing folk with their FaceBook posts during lockdown. Catzee started it all off by dancing to Happy by Pharell so Jerry the Jet, has decided to get in on the act and do a FaceBook Live dance to the SPICE Girls!! At previous SHI tournaments, seeing the mascots is a major part for our members and so, for a bit of fun, we'd like to ask them to Get Dancing!! Post it on your club's page or straight on to our FB page! Let's see how many mascots we can get dancing during this time!
At SHI, we realize how tough it has been for our hockey members to be staying home during this lockdown. My own son, Tommy, living in the UK, wants to go to his local rink to meet up with his friends and shoot some pucks. Despite everything we say about the need for staying safe at home, he keeps on asking if we can go to the rink! Explanations are not enough so we've been running weekly Zoom off-ice training sessions to keep all our players motivated and to give them all an opportunity to virtually meet up with their friends and chat. It's not the same as taking to the ice, and we can see that some countries will be returning to the ice ahead of others, but it keeps everyone engaged and we understand that the most important thing we can be doing is to keep everyone safe. As I write this, I'm sure that there are hundreds of similar stores from our SHI clubs around the world. If you feel like sharing your stories, feel free to shoot us an email and we'll share with our community. Stay safe everyone and let's look forward to our next
We are delighted to be promoting the 16th annual Toyota / USA Hockey Disabled Hockey Festival which will be taking place in Pittsburgh PA during March 26-29 2020. As our own tournament will be taking place in 2021, hosted by the Nova Cool Cats, we would encourage all our members to attend what is shaping up to be a fantastic tournament of special hockey. To find out more and to register, follow this link: https://tinyurl.com/y4wj49na
The tournament video of the 25th Anniversary Special Hockey international Tournament. is now ready for your enjoyment. For all those that attended you can re-live some of those special moments. For those of you that were not able to attend, you get a glimpse of what you missed. Grandravine Special Hockey was proud to host this very special event.