[COMMUNITY] Hockey Community partners with Belgian Ice Hockey Club Antwerp Phantoms

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

VANCOUVER/ANTWERP - Canadian based social media platform HOCKEY-COMMUNITY.COM partners with Belgian Ice Hockey Club Antwerp Phantoms to build out the mobile application of its social media platform for Club and Team Management. The Belgium based club serves as a test case to enhance HC’s activities to help amateur ice hockey clubs in Europe to organize and manage their activities. 

Belgium has played an instrumental role in the internationalization of ice hockey. Not only was the Royal Belgian Ice Hockey Federation one of the founding members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) in 1908, the first Olympic Ice Hockey tournament was played in Belgium in 1920 during the VII Olympic Games in Antwerp. The City of Antwerp has therefore always been a ‘hockey hotbed’ in Belgium where ice hockey has been present since those early days. Even two teams from the NHL Original Six, i.e. the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers played a couple of exhibition games in the city May 7th and 8th, 1959. Since 1972 ice hockey is played at the city operated ice rink ‘Ruggeveld’, the home of ice hockey club Antwerp Phantoms, which was founded in the same year. Since its birth in 1972, the club amassed a record number of national championships titles, Belgian Cups, International Tournament Cups and has been the main supplier of players for the Belgian National Team. 

The long lasting history of ice hockey in the diamond capital of the world and the presence of a well established ice hockey club with an exemplary youth program made Hockey-Community.com decide to partner with Antwerp Phantoms and use the club as a test case for further development of its services to hockey players worldwide and specifically in Europe. Since the beginning of the hockey season the REC team of the club has been using HC to successfully manage its practices, scrimmages and league games.

‘I liked HC from the very start’, says Christian Pierre, Team Manager and player from the REC team. ‘Some of our guys were a little bit reluctant to use it to confirm their presence at team practices, but once they found out they could do it by a simple click on their smartphones everybody has been using it. We’ve been working with HC since September and it’s been a fantastic tool to manage our team.

We practice twice a week and play two league games per month. With HC we know exactly with how many we are at practice and we know beforehand who will show up at the games. We have three goalies, but if only one can come to practice we use it to find an extra goalie from other clubs nearby. 

So far we always have had two goalies to scrimmage, something we lacked in the past. So the HC definitely helps us to better plan and be organized so we can have more hockey fun. Next season, all team managers from the different youth and adult categories from our club will use it. 

But the biggest asset of HC is the fact that the guys behind it are hockey players themselves and they listen to our remarks.

It keeps getting better. Our team couldn’t do without it anymore’, the Phantoms Team Manager added. ‘We are proud and honored HC picked our club as testing partner for the European development of its social media platform’, Club President and former player Jan Pasmans stated. ‘We are looking forward to a long lasting relationship with HC. Antwerp Phantoms is one of the oldest existing clubs in Belgium with a legendary record of achievements on the ice. We will not disappoint our new partner.’ 

Hockey Community will use the input of the Antwerp hockey players to further enhance the club and team tools of the social media platform. 

"Our initiative started in Canada but we quickly realized the European teams needed better tools to meet new players and organize their teams since there's even less players. With more than 90 games organized in Antwerp, the Phantoms' feedback has been incredible valuable for us to be able to adapt our technology to the local needs” – Alex Toulemonde, HC Co-Founder.