The 4th International Hockey Youth Camp
(July 19-25, 2004)

It has already become a tradition to organize hockey camps for youth in Lithuania. An international youth hockey camp organized by European Hockey Federation, SportWays and Lithuanian Hockey Federation was held for the 4th time in Bubiai - Siauliai on July 19-25th, 2004.

Quite a big group (58 all in all) of participants from Lithuania and foreign countries took part in the camp this year. Unexpectedly for us there were very many children from Vilnius and Vilnius district also other parts of Lithuania - Siauliai, Joniskis, Kelme, Sirvintos, Panevezys. For the first time five young hockey players and their coach Gunnar Kure came from Estonia, where hockey development has just recently started. There was also a group of four hockey players and their coach Martin van de Rakt from the Netherlands. Both young leaders such as Donata Dildaite, Vaidotas Juodis, Jurate Juodyte, Jaroslav Suchocki (later on all of them left for the European championships) and experienced coaches Angele Bucmiene, Birute Zasiniene, Sigita Vidginiene from Lithuania, Kristiina Suninen from Finland were involved in the organization of the camp. Very experienced caoch Martijn van Delft from the Netherlands was appointed Technical director of the camp for the second year in turn.

The camp was organized observing two basic principles: to provide hockey trainings and social programme for the partcipating kids. Every day the kids went from Bubiai to Siauliai to take part in one or two hockey training sessions. The very last day featured "kill the staff" match where the kids demonstrated their skills and improvement.

Though the summer in Lithuania was a very rainy one, we were really lucky - during the camp the weather was fine and the kids could spend much time in the open air playing, participating in various activities, going to the excursion to Kleboniskis and the Hill of Crosses. Almost everybody in the camp took part in soccer, volleyball, basketball and quadrat championships. Together with the kids of the other camp young hockey players successfully partcipated in Extravaganza and tallent show. The first evening of the camp was a real challenge for everybody - to be initiated one had to accomplish a number of different funny tasks.

The kids could also demonstrate their creativity, as they had to introduce their countries, create short poems and songs about hockey. Hopefully their English also improved, as they were given a lot of opportunities to communicate in English among themselves.

At the end of the camp each participant received a certificate of attending Youth hockey camp 2004. We hope that nobody was left without a prize - the children were awarded for being active, creative, friendly, for winning our "local" championships and so on. Ugne Chmeliauskaite from Sirvintos, Erika Nizamovaite from Siauliai and Ignas Morozas from Vilnius were especially happy as each of them received a special prize - a stick established by Martijn van Delft and Lithuanian hockey federation.

We hope that next year children will be eager to come to the 5th international youth hockey camp!