For one week in July, the hockey world will unite in Finland as the International Ice Hockey Federation host its Hockey Development Camp in Vierumäki.

This year's camp is a return to focus on male hockey players after a successful female development camp in 2008. Over 400 participants from more than 50 nations will converge on Vierumäki for a week of learning, growing and friendship.

“Every year it's amazing to see how this camp evolves,” IIHF Sport Director Dave Fitzpatrick said. “The camp just continues to grow and envelop more areas of the hockey world.”

This year's most notable addition to the Development Camp is a referee camp, that will bring in more than 30 officials from developing nations to work on the Four Man System. The referees’ experience in Vierumäki is expected to act as a springboard for them to officiate upper-level IIHF events.

For each participant, the Vierumäki experience is a little different. The 145, 15 year-old players from the many nations are split up onto eight teams. The teams do virtually everything together during the week: eat, play, practice, condition and of course, spend free time.

Then there are the adult participants, who are kept busy with a variety of schedules. For the officials, there are on-ice practices, followed by classroom lectures, and calling the afternoon games at the double ice-sheet facility at Vierumäki. The coaches are also on a similar program, splitting their time between their teams and the classroom, where they learned the latest techniques from the hand-picked instructors and mentors.

The goal, of course, is the further development of ice hockey all around the globe. It is the ultimate hope of the IIHF that each participant from Vierumäki will take what they learn back to their home nation and spread the word. But each lesson may be a little different. A Mexican player may bring home a new skill to show his teammates, while a Danish coach might pick up a new drill or two. Of course the lessons go both ways, perhaps a North American player can take home a lesson of tolerance for developing hockey nations while a Referee Instructor from Europe might have learned a better way to teach local officials.

At the end of the camp, it will be the lessons, both on and off the ice that the participants will remember – and that will have a ripple effect across the hockey community when they return home to share their Vierumäki experience.

Click here for more information about the camp.