TORONTO - Legendarni kanadski komentator, Don Cherry, je prošlog vikenda pronosao kravatu sa bh. zastavom na emisiji Hockey Night in Canada.

Povod je bio promovisanje akcije koja je nedavno sprovela NHL u glavnom gradu Bosne i Hercegovine.

Članak iz kanadske štampe prenosimo u cjelosti:

Hockey spans to Sarajevo; Goals & Dreams program brings equipment for kids

They say sport speaks a universal language and maybe that's why a group of teens in Sarajevo have adopted the game of hockey with such enthusiasm.

The NHL Players Association Goals & Dreams tour stopped in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina on November 20th to add to the store of hockey equipment it has donated over the past year to the war ravaged country.

The NHLPA, in the seventh stop of the 10-country tour, gave 25 complete sets of equipment to the Bosnia-Herzegovina Sports Foundation (BiH) to go along with the 50 sets given last year. Since its inception 10 years ago, Goals & Dreams has donated more than $17 million to programs in 22 countries.

The BiH began as a free ball-hockey program designed to get youth off the streets, and in its first years of operation, kids in the program were playing with mismatched, used equipment — or playing with none at all.

"If it weren't for hockey, most of us kids here would be on the streets doing some bad stuff," said Mirzet Hodzic, 20, who's been involved in the program since he was 14, via cellphone from Sarajevo. "Everybody from the club has to go to high school and university, has to be going for eduction."

Hodzic, who lost his father and grandfather in the Bosnian war, said he is attending university with the goal of becoming a professor of sport, so he can teach sports.

The 200 kids in the country who play hockey in the program only get to do it on ice for one month during the year when the Sarajevo arena is available to them. Otherwise, they play ball hockey in running shoes. The equipment is kept by the program and given out to players on a game-by-game basis.

The hockey heritage for the country began in 2002 when Bradley Collins, an emergency medical technician and hockey player from Fredericton, N.B., arrived with the idea of introducing the sport.

"The goals are to get them off the street, get them through school, get them through university," said Collins. "These kids have been through so much, it's like a safety valve to them. They get out and play hockey, they can just let loose."

Being from Canada gave Collins instant credibility with the youngsters, said Hodzic.

"Coach Brad encouraged the kids in our club," he said. "He is Canadian and Canada is the biggest hockey country in the world."

Hodzic is one of four players from Bosnia-Herzegovina who travelled last weekend to Toronto for the tour's final stop and a game on Monday at Hamilton's Copps Coliseum.

Like most of his hockey confreres, Hodzic follows the game mainly on the Internet. They all know who Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are, so when ex-NHL players Rob Zamuner and P.J. Stock showed up as Goals & Dreams ambassadors and played a pick-up game of ball hockey with them on Thursday, they were thrilled.

"Wherever it is, the kids are all the same," said Devin Smith, the NHLPA's Goals & Dreams chairman, who, along with Zamuner and Stock has been to all 10 cities.

"They smile the same way a kid does in Burnaby or Richmond. The look on their face when they started talking hockey and they meet Rob Zamuner and P.J. Stock, it's just amazing."