WHPP Open Days make valuable contribution to the World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend

18th and 19th October 2025 – Over the last weekend, WHPP teamed up with IIHF and used the opportunity of the 14th edition of IIHF’s annual World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend to promote this EU funded project and its goals. Four project’s partner associations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, together with women hockey teams in their respective countries organized the WHPP Open Day(s). 

Events that spanned over the two days included presentations of the Women’s Hockey Partnership for Progress project, which will be concluding its third, and for the time being, final year of running by the end of 2025. Participants of the WHPP project were able to share their impressions and experiences as well as exchange ideas for the future.

No event of the WHPP Open Day could pass without mentioning the project’s flagship event – the WHPP Ice Hockey Festival & Academy in Maribor (Slovenia), Klagenfurt (Austria) and Zagreb (Croatia), which was, during the course of these three years, a unique opportunity for young female hockey players to train and play together, to learn different skills and to make new friendships.

In addition to the presentation and promotion of the project, the WHPP Open Day events were also a chance for young girls who aspire to become hockey players to get to know the sport, put on skates, hockey gloves and helmet and try themselves on the ice. Together, with the girls who are already playing the fastest team sport in the world, they were able learn about the game of hockey first hand, and that “girls can play hockey too”.

Every single event this weekend concluded with the hope that IIHF’s World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend and WHPP’s Open Day inspires young girls and women to put on a jersey, pick up a hockey stick and show up at the ice rink for the next practice.