Necromancy level 99, sorry for reviving an old thread...
Cool article though! Used to live in Barcelona for some 4 years and went to train with the FC Barcelona hockey team once and back then they had a Swede and a couple of Canadian players, too. I'd say the team compares roughly to some low end 3rd-4th division teams in Finland. If I recall correctly there are some 4 teams in Spain (FCB, Jaca, Puigcerdà and some other team), so it is pretty small over there. Spain did not look too good in the IIHF Division II games this year, but nevertheless ended up second just behind Netherlands who where promoted to Div I. But anyway, here's to hoping some smaller hockey countries pick it up too - it'd be fun to see some of these countries play the big ones one day.
On a sidenote, we have been playing in an amateur hockey tournament in Barcelona every July with some friends for 3 years now. The ice is really bad which is understandable in summer, but I can imagine that being even more of an issue if there are ice rinks elsewhere in Spain - especially in the south. Hopefully it's better when they actually play their 4-team-league. Last year, the ice did not even freeze during the last games of the tournament and there would be quite a bit of water on the ice. Talked with some of the local guys working at the rink, they should be getting some new machinery soon but I guess we will see about that this July...