Norway set for home ice sledge hockey tournament

Norway’s best ice sledge hockey players are ready to put on a show for their home fans from Friday (18 November) as they host Sweden and Italy for the Norway Ice Hockey Federation Ice Sledge Hockey Invitational.

The competition in Skien will be the opening games of the season for the host team.

Familiar faces such as Rolf Pedersen and Thomas Jacobsen highlight Norway’s defence, whilst Morten Vaernes and Loyd Remi Solberg punctuate the offence. All four players return from their bronze medal winning performance at the European Championships last season.

Lena Schroder, the lone woman on the team, is also a notable name on the roster. Schroder competed at the Women’s World Ice Sledge Hockey Festival, scoring a hat-trick against the USA for Team Europe.

Italy are also fielding a star-studded team. Double Paralympians Gianluigi Rosa and Florian Planker will play defence alongside forwards Greg Leperdi and Andrea Chiarotti. Both Leperdi and Chiarotti have been on the Italian team at every Paralympics since 2006, and helped the team to their best ever finish at a World Championships A-Pool in 2015 with fifth place.

Sweden will play Italy for the first time since they faced them at the 2016 Euros. In that tournament Sweden finished fifth, with Italy claiming silver.

Robert Meng was a key part of their attack, scoring two goals, and he returns for the new season. Niklas Ingvarsson, a feature of the Swedish defence for almost two decades, also made an impact with one goal and two assists.

Italy and Sweden open the competition on Friday before Italy take on Norway in the evening game.

Results will be available at the Norway Ice hockey Federation website.

Game schedule

Friday (18 November)

Italy v Sweden

Norway v Italy

Saturday (19 November)

Sweden v Norway

Italy v Norway

Sunday (20 November)

Sweden v Italy

Norway v Sweden