T&T to host World Hockey League

The T&T Hockey Board will host the Federation of International Hockey (FIH) newly formed World League round one qualifiers from November 11 to 17 at the National Hockey Centre, Tacarigua. For the men’s tournament, T&T will do battle with Barbados, Chile, Puerto Rico and Venezuela while in the women’s series, Barbados, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela and host T&T will face off. The USA will also host a men’s group involving Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and USA to be played in San Diego from November 16 to 18. The World League is split into four rounds that last over a two-year cycle. For one cycle, the World League will serve as the qualifier for the World Cup and in the next cycle it is the qualifier for the Olympics.

 

Round One will be as local as possible to minimise travel costs to the smaller hockey countries. The number of round one events will vary in each cycle depending on the number of national teams entered. The number of teams in each round one event will also vary, which means that the number of teams qualified for round two from each tournament will be different. Round two will be regional and generally cover more than one continent. There will be four round two tournaments with six teams each. The format will be a single pool round robin. Round Three, the semifinal will be global and will consist of two round three tournaments with eight teams each.

 

These tournaments will feature two pools of four teams and will have placement games following the round-robin. Round four, the final will be one global tournament with the top eight teams with the same tournament format as in round three. The teams ranked among the top eight in the FIH World ranking were given a bye to round three. Teams ranked 9-16 were given a bye to round two while the host countries are also given a bye to the various rounds, but essentially will fit into the structure for the event they are hosting. Teams playing in the newly formed League will gain FIH World Ranking points and get a rare chance to gain valuable international playing experience against other national teams. Teams can also qualify from the World League for the Olympics and World Cup.