RFEDH · History

The Royal Spanish Ice Sports Federation (Real Federación Española de Deportes de Hielo, RFEDH) is headquartered in Barcelona, on Carrer de Roger de Flor, number 45. It is the governing body in Spain for ice hockey, curling, figure skating, long-track and short-track speed skating, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge. It is registered with the Spanish Olympic Committee as a federation of Olympic disciplines. It represents the country before the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the International Skating Union (ISU), the World Curling Federation (WCF) and the international governing bodies of luge and of bobsleigh and skeleton. On 27 July 2017 King Felipe VI granted it the title “Real” (Royal), which it added to its name.

Origins in ice hockey

Spain’s presence in international ice sport began with hockey. The country joined the IIHF on 10 March 1923 and played its first international match that same year: on 21 December 1923 the men’s team beat Belgium 6-4 in Bagnères-de-Luchon, France, in the Challenge de Haute-Garonne. An artificial ice rink was built in Madrid during those early years. The sport then went through long interruptions. After an eleven-year gap, hockey returned to Spain in 1972 with a national tournament whose first game was played in San Sebastián.

Domestic competitions

That revival gave birth to the Liga Nacional de Hockey Hielo (LNHH), the Spanish league. Its first season, 1972-73, featured six teams and was won by Real Sociedad, with Madrid as runners-up; the San Sebastián club retained the title in 1974 and 1975. CG Puigcerdà won the league in 1986, 1989, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2020, and CH Jaca has been one of the most frequent finalists. Alongside the men’s league, the federation runs the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup), the women’s league and the Copa de la Reina (Queen’s Cup). In curling it organizes the men’s and women’s Spanish Championships.

The men’s national hockey team

The men’s team made its World Championship debut in 1977 and finished 22nd, its best placing in the tournament. On 13 March 1978 in Las Palmas it suffered its heaviest defeat, 0-19 against the Netherlands. Its biggest win came on 27 March 1992 in Johannesburg: 38-0 over Turkey. From 2001 it played in Division II, which it won in 2010 to reach Division I for the first time, playing there in 2011. It won Division II Group B again in 2014 and 2018, and in 2023 it took Group A, a result that lifted it to Division I B. It played the 2024, 2025 and 2026 World Championships at that level.

The women’s national hockey team

The women’s team played its first international match on 21 May 2009 in Cergy, France, losing 10-1 to a Bavarian selection. Its World Championship debut came in 2011, in Division V in Sofia. From 2012 to 2018 it competed in Division II Group B and from 2019 to 2025 in Group A. In 2026 it played in Division I B for the first time. The women’s team has never qualified for the Olympic Games.

Figure skating

Figure skating brought the federation its most far-reaching results through Javier Fernández. In 2011 he won silver at Skate Canada, the first Grand Prix medal for a Spanish skater, and he won the same event the following year. In 2013 he became the first Spaniard to win the European title and took bronze at the World Championships, a result he repeated in 2014. He was world champion in 2015 and 2016 and won seven consecutive European titles between 2013 and 2019. At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics he won bronze, Spain’s first Olympic medal in figure skating. He announced his retirement on 28 November 2018, and the 2019 European Championships were his final competition.

Curling

Spanish curling won its first world medal in 2014 at the World Mixed Doubles Championship in Dumfries: Irantzu García and Sergio Vez took bronze after beating the Hungarian pair of Dorottya Palancsa and Zsolt Kiss, the defending champions, 7-4. In 2017 Vez’s men’s team won the European Championship C Division in Andorra. At the World Mixed Championship, the team of Sergio Vez, Oihane Otaegi, Mikel Unanue and Leire Otaegi finished runners-up in Kelowna in 2018 and took silver again in Aberdeen in 2023, losing the final 8-2 to Sweden.