Ice hockey is flourishing in … Nairobi

Nairobi’s Panari Hotel sits alongside a freeway between the town heart and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. On the second flooring, throughout from a Chinese restaurant and subsequent to a movie show, is a small skating rink that serves as the house base for the Kenya Ice Lions, the one ice hockey group in equatorial Africa.

On a latest Wednesday, the world echoed with the thud of hockey sticks and our bodies colliding with the boards. From the bench, gamers shouted at their teammates in Swahili as they confronted off in a five-a-side scrimmage on a rink only a quarter of the dimensions of a regulation National Hockey League rink.

An unlimited divide exists in Kenya between the wealthy and poor, however right here in Nairobi ice hockey helps to bridge the hole. The group is made up of “people from very humble backgrounds, and people from the worldlier side of life,” says 30-year-old Ice Lions captain, Benjamin Mburu, who works as an architect and development supervisor. Many of the group members are nonetheless college students; some are unemployed. The sport has additionally been a lifeline for gamers like 21-year-old Chumbana Likiza Muhusini, who grew up in one of many metropolis’s harshest slums. None of that issues on the ice. “No one cares about who came from where,” Mburu says.