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  Breaking the ice: Arab and Jewish teens play together in rare mixed Israeli ice hockey team
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ContributorMonsieur 
Last EditedMonsieur  Mar 02, 2012 10:18am
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AuthorDiaa Hadid
News DateFriday, March 2, 2012 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionMETULLA, ISRAEL—An Arab-Jewish hockey team has become an unlikely icebreaker in this remote corner of northern Israel, overcoming barriers of language, culture and conflict.

A few years ago, a mixed team in these parts was unthinkable. In the arid Middle East, hockey is virtually unheard of, and relations between Arabs and Jews in this combustible area, next to the tense borders of Lebanon and Syria, are generally downright chilly. The Arab players on the Metulla junior ice hockey team, coming from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, technically aren’t even Israeli.

But thanks to an accidental combination of generous philanthropy, a local hockey enthusiast and a sports-mad Arab mayor, the mixed team of teens and preteens is thriving.

“When you play together, you forget that you are Arabs and Jews,” said Mayyas Sabag, a 12-year-old forward from the Druse village of Majdal Shams. He is one of five Arab athletes on the 14-member team, which is travelling to Canada this month.

The team is the product of Metulla’s Canada Centre, a sprawling sports complex donated to this rural border town in the 1990s by Canadian Jews. The building houses Israel’s only Olympic-size hockey rink.
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