To understand what it meant to beat Luxembourg in such a climax, you have to realise where Irish ice hockey has come from and I can assure you it has come a long, long way since I first became aware of it.

I grew up as an Irish-American in Boston. I played college hockey at a decent level in Providence and at the time John Treacy and a lot of Irish athletes would have been in my class there. But despite the links, Ireland and ice hockey never crossed my mind until 1996. At that time I was coaching the French national side and it was at a conference I met some representatives from Ireland and we got talking. I told them if they ever needed any help to call and the whole thing ended up with the team coming over to France.

To be honest, when I saw the team for the first time it was best described as scary. I knew the level was going to be low and they proved me right at that stage. But what more could you expect? These guys were coming from a country that has no culture and more importantly had no rinks. The players I saw got very little ice time across the year and it was always going to be a huge task to try and bring them anywhere on the international stage.

We struggled along but despite the level there were some good times. Take last year as an example. We organised for the team to go to Boston and for a week we were kings. Harvard gave us a rink for our personal use every day and no matter where we went, the IrishAmerican community wanted to see these guys. We played a couple of games and went to see the Boston Bruins and it was all really a wake up call, to see the different levels and to see the sport played at its very best. But I think the guys took a lot on board over there because going into the Division Three World Championships a couple of weeks back, I knew we were going to be competitive. I knew in every game we had a chance and we could hold our own against the bigger names. And then there were games against the likes of Mongolia.

That night really made me see how far we had come.

They were very poor skaters and I think they had never seen the physical stuff because by the end of the tournament, there were as many of their players injured as there were fit. And for an Irish ice hockey head coach to be able to take pity on a team, well, we never thought we'd have that chance.

And now to Division Two.

We'll be in with the likes of China, Serbia, Romania and I suppose it is a bit daunting.

You have to realise all our guys are from this country, it's not a case of bringing in people with passports, so they don't know what to expect.

Six of the guys are from Dublin and quite a few are from the North and they'll never have seen the likes of this. But I know what to expect having played a lot of these sides when I was in charge of France. It's not going to be easy and may in fact be next to impossible, but you have to try these things and it's the only way we can get better.

I've been talking to John Treacy quite a bit over the last few days and I know he's been keeping an eye on our results. I've been reminding him of our days at Providence as well, trying to keep him aware of what we are doing.

And that's crucial because we need support and we need rinks and both of those aspects are looking much more positive than they were a few years back. There are plans for as many as four new rinks in the coming years which would introduce so many more people to the sport. Just as we did last Sunday I hope.

I've coached at the Olympics in Nagano, I've been around at quite a high level but the excitement and enthusiasm generated by 2,000 people in Dundalk was as good as anything I've ever experienced. They loved the drama and they helped get us through that shoot-out and helped us on to a new level.

What will happen next, we are not sure but all of this has been an unplanned journey.

The next one will be no different. We continue on, blind.

Jim Tibbetts is Head Coach of the Irish national ice hockey team