The last ice hockey game

Tina Schoolmeester

By GRID-Arendal

June 28^th, 2018

Two hockey legends are working with UN Environment to hold “the last ice hockey game in the Arctic” in April 2019.

Russian Viacheslav Fetisov and Canadian Wayne Gretzky (known as “The Great One”) had outstanding careers in the National Hockey League and they want to use the game they love to draw attention to the rapidly melting Arctic ice cap. The initiative is being supported by UN Environment and Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN, who will host a climate summit in New York in September 2019.

Photos: Fetisov, Getty Images; Gretzky, thecarmengroup.com

UN Environment Executive Director, Erik Solheim, recently asked Jan-Gunnar Winther, the chair of GRID-Arendal’s board of directors, to be expedition leader for the hockey game. Winther has led a number of polar expeditions.

The highly symbolic game will take place on an ice rink at the North Pole. The event aims to gain world-wide attention and raise awareness about the global implications of the rapidly disappearing ice in the Polar regions. It will also increase understanding about the effects of pollution and climate change in general, the importance of sustainable ocean governance and the need for collaboration and stability in the Arctic.

“Using sports as a kind of soft diplomacy is intriguing and there is the potential to reach out to billions of people with this event,” says Winther.

Source: National Snow and Ice Data Centre

The teams will include hockey players and famous personalities from a variety of sports from around the world, as well as Arctic Indigenous Peoples and youth.

While governments around the world are giving their support to this historic game, it should be stressed that this will not be a political event. Sport celebrities – not politicians – will send the message of concern out from the North Pole to political leaders.