The Hockey Museum (THM) is based in Woking, England and its initial remit has focused on the heritage and development of hockey in England, the birthplace of the modern game. Hockey as a fast growing sport is now played in over 130 countries around the world so it was inevitable that THM would increasingly look to encourage a better understanding of the worldwide heritage of the sport. So, following discussions with the International Hockey Federation Foundation (FIHF), in July 2015 THM and FIFH signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the following key aims:

• To provide opportunities to increase the visibility of the sport and to effectively celebrate the achievements and progress of hockey;
• To preserve an accurate story of hockey and provide access to authoritative historical archives and statistical data;
• To preserve and make available historical information and materials for use in a wide variety of ways e.g. for educational purposes and enquiries from hockey fans; and
• To work towards creating an international hockey museum and archives

THM remains an independent museum but as part of its new remit, it will take on a lead role on behalf of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) in a number of defined areas. In response to specific proposals for projects, the FIH Foundation will look to fund initiatives that work towards the delivery of the above aims.

As a result of this partnership, THM has reviewed its strategy and will develop initiatives in the following areas;

• Take the lead on behalf of FIH for preserving hockey’s worldwide heritage.
• Lead a project to produce an authoritative history of hockey.
• Develop a partnership with The Olympic Museum to give hockey a higher profile within the Olympic movement.
• Develop a database of international match and player records.

Delivering these ambitions will be a challenge and the THM will be identifying a series of projects for how this can be achieved. The first of these, a scoping study for a project to preserve hockey’s worldwide heritage and to produce an authoritative history of hockey, has now been defined and work started in February 2016.

Further work to develop a partnership with The Olympic Museum and to digitise historic international match and player records will be announced in future.

If you would like to find out more about THM’s international heritage work or offer any support, please contact the Museum through our dedicated contact form.