Philippine hockey team hopes to sustain momentum of golden SEAG conquest

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine ice hockey team skipper Steven Fuglister is thankful that his crew was able to put the country in the sporting map. 

And with a gold medal under their belt, he also hopes that this brings more attention to the sport and the team.

“[It] makes it even nicer for us — that we’ve been able to fly under the radar and get a gold. Now, we’re here,” he told the press during SM’s feting of the ice hockey delegates to the 2017 Southeast Asian Games. 

“I hope we can stay,” he added.

The Philippines stunned the regional powerhouse Thailand in the gold medal game of the biennial meet, 5-4. 

Leading 5-3 in the waning moments of the match, the Thais threatened to pull the rug on the Filipinos. But the Nationals, who were going by the moniker “Mighty Ducks” — by chance or by candidness — held on to the lead and pulled off the improbable.

“Everyone played like they grew an inch — like they were maybe six-foot-six,” the Filipino-Swiss said.  

The team's name is a nod to a rag-tag hockey team from an American film in 1992.

The win was so unprecedented that they called it “Miracle on Ice.” The Ducks' conquest was the only gold-medal outing the Philippines had in the SEA Games' inaugural ice events.