The Slovenian ice hockey team will make its Olympic debut at the Sochi Winter Olympics. Merely qualifying for the Olympics represents a success unprecedented in the history of hockey in Slovenia. While Slovenian players participated at previous Olympics, they were a part of the Yugoslav team. This time, it was the Slovenian national team that became one of the 12 teams to qualify for the Olympics – proving to the world that Slovenia, with a population of just two million ad just 886 registered players (compared to Canada’s 625,152), is also a hockey nation.

The beginnings of hockey in Slovenia are linked to Stanko Bloudek, a prolific inventor, a world-class designer of ski jumps, and the man also responsible for bringing track-and-field, figure skating, and table tennis to the country. Bloudek was one of the leading figures of Ljubljana’s Ilirija sports team between the World Wars. He and another Ilirija manager, Viktor Vodišek, went to Vienna and returned with the first hockey equipment ever brought to Slovenia; they also introduced the original, Canadian rules of the game. Soon – the exact year is still a matter of contention --, the first hockey rink was set up in Ljubljana’s Tivoli Park.

What is known is that the first official hockey game in Slovenia took place on February 7, 1932, in Kamnik. Because Ilirija was the only hockey team in Slovenia, the opposing team had to be assembled just for the game. Fittingly, Ilirija won the game 15:1. (Ilirija’s victory would have been absolute had not one of the Kamnik’s players managed to score a goal with his head.)
Just two weeks later Ilirija played in the first-ever international hockey game on Slovenian soil. KAC from the Austrian town of Klagenfurt turned out to be a much tougher opponent – it pummeled Ilirija 12:1.

In 1934, the resort town of Bled hosted Slovenia’s first international tournament, with several Austrian and Hungarian teams taking part. In 1937, Yugoslavia got its first hockey league. Ilirija didn’t face too much competition. In fact, it was officially declared the Yugoslav champion in the first two years of the league’s existence without having to play a single game, as it was the only team in the league.

After World War II, Slovenian hockey began almost anew, but still building on the prewar tradition. In Ljubljana, the prewar Ilirija was replaced by the Ljubljana hockey club, which became Olimpija in the early 1960s, and remained an important team in the Yugoslav league. But one town in particular became almost synonymous with the sport. In Jesenice, a grimy industrial town in the northern part of the country, hockey became a passion for the local young people, many employed by the steel mill dominating that town. In the winter months, when the surrounding mountains kept Jesenice cold and sunless, the town’s young people would gather at the outdoor skating rink and play hockey.

Jesenice’s passion translated in dominance in the Yugoslav league when the town got its first mechanically frozen ice rink. Between 1957 and 1971 alone, Jesenice became the Yugoslav champion every single year; it lost just four games in 14 years.

Meanwhile, the Yugoslav national team, in which Slovenian players were increasingly dominant, qualified for several Olympics and World Championships. However, Slovenia’s greatest achievements in hockey had to wait for independence.

After a rocky start, the new Slovenian national team managed to qualify for the Elite group at the World Championships in 2001, and for the first time, the Slovenian flag flew alongside those of the world’s leading hockey powers. In 2006, Anže Kopitar, born in Jesenice, became the first Slovenian-born player to play in the NHL when he joined the Los Angeles Kings. He was recognized one of the top rookies and soon became the Kings’ leading player, as well as one of the top two-way forwards in the NHL. Kopitar helped the Kings to win the 2012 Stanley Cup, and brought the cup to Slovenia as part of a ceremonial tour. (Another Slovenian player, Jan Muršak, later followed Kopitar to the NHL, but now plays in Russia in the prestigious KHL league.)

In 2013, the Slovenian team made the final step to prove that it belongs with the very best: It beat several tough competitors to qualify for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

Even though hockey came to Slovenia relatively late – several decades after many of the current Olympic competitors had already proven themselves as world hockey champions – Slovenia has now finally joined the world’s hockey elite. Whatever happens at the Sochi Olympics, Slovenia is now a true hockey nation, combining a passion for the game with a record of success that gives it a well-deserved place among much more prominent hockey powers.