Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts is ex­pect­ed to take the salute when the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League (ASNL) for­mal­ly jump off its 23rd sea­son with an Open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and Knock­out Tour­na­ment at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na, Or­ange Grove Road, Tacarigua to­day from 3pm fol­low­ing the pa­rade of par­tic­i­pat­ing clubs.

In ad­di­tion to Roberts, Lar­ry Ro­many, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC) and Fran­cis­ca Rousseau, pres­i­dent of the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TNA) are al­so ex­pect­ed to wit­ness the open­ing.

As in the past, this year's ASNL will fea­ture three main di­vi­sions, Pre­mier­ship, Cham­pi­onship and lo­ran­dite, com­pris­ing 15) teams; four in the Pre­mier­ship, six in the Cham­pi­onship, and five in the Al­ter­na­tive.

In ad­di­tion, there are now five (5) teams in the Retro Di­vi­sion.

Dur­ing the sea­son, teams in the Pre­mier­ship will play two rounds of com­pe­ti­tion for cash prizes while a third round of com­pe­ti­tion will be played for the Steven­son Sar­jeant Chal­lenge tro­phy, in mem­o­ry of the late ex-May­or of Port of Spain who was an hon­orary mem­ber of the man­age­ment com­mit­tee of the league, and who passed on in 2010.

The Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion will as usu­al, play two rounds for the league tro­phy and face each oth­er in a Knock­out com­pe­ti­tion for the Jean Pierre Chal­lenge tro­phy, in mem­o­ry of Eu­ge­nia 'Jean' Pierre T.C., C.M.T., H.B.M., who was one of the prin­ci­pals who pi­o­neered the League in 1990 and who passed on in 2002.

The ASNL will al­so in­clude the FAST 5 as an­oth­er com­pe­ti­tion in each Di­vi­sion.

This is a re­vised ver­sion of the short­er game which was played in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for or the first time in Auck­land, New Zealand in No­vem­ber 2012.

...Fire Of­fi­cer Pierre-Boyce to get a minute's si­lence

A minute si­lence will al­so be held at to­day's open­ing of the ASNL in re­mem­brance of fall­en fire of­fi­cer Na­tal­ie Pierre-Boyce who was cre­mat­ed at the Bel­grove's Cre­ma­to­ri­um, yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral in Port-of-Spain.

A for­mer na­tion­al and Fire Ser­vice net­baller, Boyce, a moth­er of two was killed on De­cem­ber 30 by a stray bul­let from gun­men who opened fire on a group of peo­ple at Jack­son Place, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain.

She was a fire fight­er with about ten years ser­vice and was as­signed to the Fire Ser­vices Mu­sic Band.

All Sec­tors Net­ball League:

Di­vi­sions and clubs:

Al­ter­na­tive Di­vi­sion: Po­lice Ser­vice, TSTT (Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T), USC (Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean), UTT (Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T), COSTAATT (Col­lege of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion: Bermudez, De­fence Force, San Juan Jabloteh, Fire Ser­vice, Po­lice, and UWI (Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies)

Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion: Po­lice, Fire, De­fence Force and UTT

Retro Di­vi­sion: Les En­fants, TSTT, Harlem and new­com­ers Les Femmes and CCS (Com­plete Cus­tomer Ser­vices)