Apart from climbing mountains, we love to play hockey, and on Monday April 11th we played a game of shinny hockey on the Khumbu glacier on Mount Everest , at 17,575 feet, taking the game to new heights.

Game report by Terry Kell

This morning, in calmer weather, a good crowd of spectators came out to watch the highest game of ice hockey in the world. The ice rink on the glacier, or “glink”, was in excellent shape; the conditions were good; and the puck was flying. Canada played a team from the Rest of the World which included players from Australia, Nepal and the USA.

Gerry Gaetz opened the scoring for Canada with a goal after just 16 seconds.

Refereeing the game was our head sherpa, Tsherling. Although this was his first refereeing engagement he did an outstanding job and had as much fun as all the players. He called a lot of penalties and a lot of time was spent in a crevasse, which doubled as the penalty box. But it was all played in great spirits. The game was interrupted by there yaks at one point which decided that they needed to cross the rink and one of them even watered the ice surface for us. Who needs a Zamboni when you have yaks to help you out?

Canada eventually won this record-breaking game, 21 - 13.

On March 3rd, in Toronto, we had a formal send off for the expedition by Ron Ellis (Toronto Maple Leafs No.6 and 72 Team Canada ). He presented the group with Team Canada jerseys autographed by himself and Paul Henderson, to be worn during the "summit" hockey game.

Commenting on the game, Ron Ellis said, “The Team of the Century's amazing victory in 1972 will now be honoured 'on top of the world'.”

With the highest game of hockey in the world came some special rules, of course – see below.

You can read more details on the famous 1972 summit series at:

http://www.1972summitseries.com
http://www.chidlovski.com/personal/1972/content.htm
http://slam.canoe.ca/72Summit/home.html

Dowload the rules