Dubai hockey star hits the books as hard as the ice

Dubai: When the UAE ice hockey team takes to the rink next week for the 2012 Gulf Ice Hockey Championship, the moment will also mark the culmination of eight months of hard work and achievement for Emirati player Saeed Sulaiman Rashid Al Nuaimi.

The 21-year-old forward has spent this academic year learning to balance an international sporting career with full time studies at the Canadian University of Dubai.

In the first year of his business marketing degree, Al Nuaimi is also a member of the UAE ice hockey team that won the Challenge Cup of Asia in March. "It has been a very busy year," said Al Nuaimi, who also plays for the successful UAE league team the Abu Dhabi Storms.

When he is not at lectures or doing assignments, the 21-year-old undergraduate, who is based in the capital, can usually be found on the ice. "We train Sunday through to Wednesday from 6.30pm to 10pm and if the national team has a competition coming up we train morning and evening," he explained.

"I play left forward so you have to be fast and active and know how to score goals. Practice is vital."

‘Incredible feeling'

The hard work has paid off. In India, the student was responsible for six of the 42 goals scored by the UAE national team, which conceded just three. But Al Nuaimi is no stranger to success. A year after he was spotted by a hockey player during a visit to an ice rink in the capital, he was celebrating the UAE's 2009 Challenge Cup of Asia triumph. "It was an incredible feeling, I was extremely proud," he recalled.

"When I first said that I wanted to play ice hockey my friends and family were shocked and bemused. They couldn't understand how or why I would choose that sport. But now they come to watch me play and really enjoy it."

The team went on to finish second in the 2010 and 2011 tournaments, losing out to Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong, respectively.

With impressive title wins under the UAE national ice hockey team's belt already, Al Nuaimi and his teammates now have their sights firmly set on retaining the Gulf Cup and moving up the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) rankings at the 2013 IIHF World Championships in Europe.

And he is hopeful that his success on the ice can be replicated in the classroom.

"The university is very supportive of my sporting career and whenever I need time off for training camps it has been no problem," he said. "But while I love ice hockey, I take my studies very seriously."