Given my affinity for awesome hockey jerseys, I was on the internet recently, searching that very topic, when I happened upon a striking kelly-green jersey with black and red stripes and a big heraldic lion holding a hockey stick in its mighty paws on the chest. The jersey was for a team called the Kenya Ice Lions, and I wanted one immediately. I also assumed Kenya, in this case, must be referring to some small town in Canada I’d never heard of, and definitely not the arguably more popular country in East Africa. But upon further reading, I learned that the Kenya Ice Lions were indeed located in the country of Kenya—Nairobi, to be exact—and not the small Canadian town it turns out exists only in my mind.
I also learned that not only were the Ice Lions the only ice hockey team in all of Kenya, but they also skated on the only ice rink in the entire country, located inside Nairobi’s Panari Hotel. It turned out I was a bit late to the party, too, as the Ice Lions’ story had already spread far and wide among hockey fans a few years back, thanks to a short film about them made by Tim Hortons, the popular Canadian donut concern, in which the team traveled to Toronto for a scrimmage against a team of firefighters who had their work cut out for them after NHL stars Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon suited up for the Ice Lions as surprise ringers. Last but not least, it turned out my new friend Slava Fetisov had already managed to make it all the way to Kenya to skate with the team. And when I heard this last bit of information, I decided it would be totally weird if I didn’t do the same.
Through a bit of Facebook stalking, I was able to track down an Ice Lions player named Ali Kilanga and dropped him a line. “I would like come to Nairobi and play hockey with you guys,” I told him, cutting right to the chase. Much to my delight, Ali told me to come on over. The only problem, it turned out, is that the team’s ice rink had temporarily closed during the pandemic and the players were currently staying in shape by playing roller hockey.
