Dave Hammond teams up with Inline Hockey Ireland to operate as a consultant coach on our U18, Women’s and Men’s National Programmes. This role will see Dave offering advice to coaches and management in terms of session plans, tactics, tournament planning and any other advice that can bring us benefit. Dave will also be given video access of all sessions to help point coaches in the right direction to improve players’ individual skills. In the long run, we will be looking to bring Dave to Ireland later in the season to run camps for the various programmes and he will serve as the Men’s assistant coach during competitions, allowing us to benefit from his extensive experience.

Dave has represented Canada at 19 international events to date and is their all-time leader in games played, goals and points. From those 19 events as a player, he has accumulated 9 medals, including 2 golds in 2012 and 2015 from IIHF World Championships. Dave is very well regarded in the global game and is a natural leader, being part of Team Canadas leadership group on several occasions. 

Coaching has always been something that Dave has been drawn to, coaching the Coastal Pirates in Namibia for a few years where he still resides, working as the Sports Co-ordinator for the Swakopmund Indoor Sport Centre. Dave is a real ambassador for the game as he works to grow the game in Africa, hosting the inaugural Africa Cup earlier this year, which looked to be a remarkable success. At international level Dave has coached New Zealand Men to a Bronze medal in the IIHF Division 1 pool and more recently has been the head coach of Canada Women, where they picked up a gold medal at the 2012 FIRS World Championships.

Despite a busy summer, playing at the IIHF World Championships in Slovakia, the World Games in Poland and the Roller Games in China, where he also coached the Women’s team once again, Dave has kept in regular contact with us and has shown a keen interest to help develop our programmes. His desire of always looking to grow our sport led Dave to being named as the Inline Hockey Player Ambassador for FIRS a couple weeks ago, highlighting how well respected he is around the world.

Dave Hammond

"I have spent many years trying to grow this wonderful sport around the world and I am beyond excited to see Ireland join the party. I am honored to be involved and excited to play a role in the development of Ireland's inline hockey future."

Michael Creane, Chairperson

“When Dave first reached out wanting to get involved in our programmes I was surprised that someone of his experience would want to help a small hockey country like us. Then after getting to know him a bit you understand than he loves the game of inline hockey and wants to help the game grow wherever he can.

Getting Dave involved in our programmes was a no-brainer due to his vast experience and success, the difficult part was figuring how exactly we could make it work. I believe the solution we’ve come up with will vastly benefit all our programmes and the players within them, which in turn can only benefit the game as a whole in Ireland.”