At the World Ice Hockey World Championship (Division IIIA) held in Istanbul, Turkmenistan's national team showed an impressive result, winning silver medals. Six teams took part in the tournament: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, South Africa and Turkmenistan. This is reported by the ‘Turkmenistan: Golden age’.

The Turkmen team started the tournament with three consecutive victories: 3:1 against Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2:1 against the tournament hosts - Turkey, 8:3 against Luxembourg. The decisive game was against Kyrgyzstan, in which the Turkmenistan is suffered their only defeat (1:6). However, in the final game against South Africa, the team showed character, coming back from 2:5 down in the third period to win in overtime (6:5).

With 11 points, Turkmenistan took second place, behind only Kyrgyzstan (15 points). This result was a significant progress compared to last year's 4th place. The team featured 19 hockey players from the Galkan, Shir, Oguzkhan and Alp Arslan clubs. The coaching staff headed by Ilyas Veliyev successfully prepared the team for the tournament, which made it possible to achieve the best result in the history of Turkmen hockey.