We have recently completed the 40 minute documentary of our adventures in Mongolia, and we are inspired. We are keen to hear from anyone capable of helping share this story, and hopefully many like it in the future, on a television network, so please contact us!
Resilience and Passion:
One thing is for certain. Mongolian kids are passionate, resilient, tough, and don’t feel the cold! Imagine loving a sport so much you’d play for hours in borrowed, broken, and wrong sized gear. You’d do this in -30 degree temperatures, in the dark, with no mitts, gloves, or toque.
We arrived in one small town in -27 degree temperatures and pitch black night, to find 30 brave kids on the ice, under the guidance of the mayor of the town and all their parents. They had heard we were in a neighbouring town, and made a last minute plea to get us on the ice. Amazingly, they’d been skating for 5 hours, now in the dark, just hoping we would show up in time to teach them some skills.
Equipment:
We managed to get 10 full bags of gear (including over 50 pairs of skates) through customs without issue. Pujee even talked his way past security the night I arrived to be waiting at customs for me, and convinced them no duty should be paid on used gear for kids. Thank you Pujee!
Hudson (8) and Mom Tracei Akarlilar brought 6 of the bags with them from New York, and raised enough to ship another 8 boxes of gear from NYC, which were sitting in customs at our time of departure from Mongolia. Tracei and Hudson we are eternally grateful.
EJ Bauer:
EJ Bauer, nephew of Father David, and the Bauer hockey empire, and builder of amazing rinks around the world, joined us for the final weekend 
(who flies from Waterloo to Mongolia for the weekend?!), and brought with him a ton of connections, and 25 pairs of skates! Thank you EJ!
NHLPA:
The NHLPA is sitting on 25 full sets of gear, and awaiting our shipping instructions. Amazing. Thank you NHLPA, and to Karin Larsen for setting that up!
Our Crew:
A huge thank you to our incredibly professional film crew of Karin Larsen CBC, Mike Dickenson (The Map Makers Project), and work horse Pat Bell. The shots they got were beyond my wildest imagination, and will soon shine for the world to see. You guys worked so hard throughout the trip, for morning, and late into the night and it payed off. Thank you.
The trip would never have been as successful without the tireless efforts of our new friends in Mongolia. Pujee, Ryan, Bayar, and our driver Nergui, thank you so much!
Our Tour Documented:
We started in the capital, and made our way north through many incredibly inspiring villages, reaching 80km south of the Russian border, then back to finish in the capital. Many great stories of the journey are wrapped into this fantastic documentary. We never imagined 300km of off-road 4×4 to find a rink, meetings in the Canadian Embassy, dinner with the Ambassador to Canada, and nearly getting the president of Mongolia on the ice. Have we captured your interest? Perfect.
Thank you all for making this incredible journey a reality, and we can’t wait to share it with you. Please contact me with viewing inquiries, and follow us socially (top right) to stay tuned.
If there is one place on Earth nature intended there to be hockey, it’s Mongolia. Karin Larsen.
Job Well Done!!
I am a Captain with Vancouver Fire Rescue and also the President of Firefighters Without Borders Canada. Our main focus is shipping donated firefighting and emergency equipment to less developed countries. We also deliver training to these companies.
In the past few months we have been taking in donations of hockey and snowboard equipment from a local hospital thrift store. We can find a home for the warm weather stuff like basketball, soccer, etc, but not for hockey and snowboarding items. We currently have about two pick up loads of jerseys, skates, helmets, pants, pads, goalie masks, etc available for donation. Also some figure skates. It would be a shame to throw this stuff out, so we continue to search out an organization we might be able to pass these donations on to.
Sincerely;
Bob Dubbert
President- Firefighters Without Borders Canada
bobdvfd@gmail.com
Cell: 604-999-5188
Hi Bob,
Sorry I missed this comment, and thanks for writing! Please let me know if this gets to you. I have had some great chats with Five Hole for Food recently, who have some supporting organizations, one of which is the Hockey Foundation who does similar work to you by collecting gear and storing it for groups. I’d like to contact them to see if we can’t get this going for a future delivery to Mongolia. Let’s chat!