WHPP at the Budapest IIHF Women’s Ice Hockey Summit

27th February 2023, Budapest – “The Women’s Hockey Partnership for Progress  received very positive feedback by the IIHF members and other participants at the Summit,” commented WHPP Project Manager Haris Muhić who, together with IHF Slovenia Secretary General Dejan Kontrec over the the last weekend attended the 2023 IIHF Women’s Ice Hockey Summit in Budapest.

“Being able to participate on behalf of the WHPP at this top level event in women’s ice hockey was not merely beneficial to the visibility of the project itself, but also offered us significant exchange of ideas and know-how that we can implement in the project over the next three years,” added Muhić while already looking ahead to the upcoming first WHPP Academy in Maribor (SLO) later this year.

The two-day Summit focused on various aspects of the women’s game, including promotion and marketing which essential for attracting young girls to the sport. “In regions where women’s ice hockey is under-developed, we need larger focus on promotion to break with some stereotypes associated to girls taking up this sport,” said Dejan Kontrec reminding that ice hockey is still to often considered as male sport and visibility of women’s ice hockey is largely inter-linked with success in men’s hockey. “Hopefully, we can make some changes for the better with WHPP in the Danube region,” concluded Kontrec at the end of the conference in Budapest.