Three days are left before the 2008 European Championships in Zagreb. We have been working hard throughout the year to get our skaters ready for the major competition of the season. Our skaters have been training hard to reach the top of their competitive form.
We have tried to foresee everything as the policy of the IISF is to predict and prevent any problems caused to the training process. Therefore, our senior skaters remained in Metulla after the Nationals to fly to Zagreb from here and to avoid the jet lag and the fatigue of traveling. We couldn't have predicted that the Canada Centre, which happens to be the official training facility of the winter Olympic team, would be the least accommodating place for our skaters to train during the crucial week of preparation for the Europeans.
The freezing cold in the ice rink area of the Canada Centre has been intolerably unsuited for holding training sessions and competition events. The area has an air-conditioner, which could have been turned on saving our skaters stone-stiff muscles, coughs, shivers and fever. You name it – we have it. However, we were told by the management of the Canada Centre that turning on the air-conditioner would make the ice melt. We held the 2007 Nationals in the same place in August. The temperature inside was about 18 degrees centigrade, and no ice melted. All we asked was to raise the temperature in the rink till the tolerable level of 8 or 10 degrees centigrade (which is the worldwide standard temperature for ice rinks) instead of the crushing -2 centigrade in the rink area and to enable our skaters the minimal training and performance conditions. The management of the Canada Centre refused to do it. On our home training ground. In the facility, which receives hundreds of thousands of NIS for the ice time our team uses.
Having been left with the desperate need to remedy the situation on our own, we rushed to buy huge electric heaters to make our skaters a little bit warmer. We have been obstructed even in that. We have not been given enough electrical power to turn the 4 heaters on, and somebody opened the windows in the rink area, which made whatever heat that was generated evaporate like smoke along with so many of our efforts of the entire year. Our skaters have not lost their competitive spirit and are coming to the training sessions to get themselves ready and perform at their very best in Zagreb. Despite the shivering cold and despite the sabotage of the Canada Centre.
We sincerely hope that somebody will explain to Mr. Tanuri, General Director of the UIA of Canada, to Mr. Kali, Chairman of the CC Board of Management, to Mr. Ben Shahar, General Manager of CC that our athletes are ambassadors of the State of Israel in the world and it's the honor and duty of every Israeli to help them to represent our country in the best possible way.
The event has been given coverage in the Israeli media
(Channel 2 News, newspaper publications (the Maariv), with more media exposure to follow.
