Na­tion­al men’s hock­ey 5s coach Akim Tou­s­saint has named sev­en mem­bers of the 2024 FIH Hock­ey5s World Cup team in his 21-man train­ing squad which will con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tions for the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey 5s World Cup Qual­i­fiers in Mon­te­v­ideo, Uruguay, from June 1 to 8.

Tou­s­saint, who was cap­tain of the Dar­ren Cowie-coached team when they qual­i­fied for the in­au­gur­al FIH Hock­ey 5s World Cup in Oman in 2024 af­ter end­ing as run­ner-up to the USA at the eight-team Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey5s World Cup Qual­i­fiers in Kingston, Ja­maica, in 2023, has re­tained Eng­land-based for­ward Teague Mar­cano, Mick­ell Pierre, Jor­dan Vieira, Mal­colm Bap­tiste, Shaquille Daniel, Jor­dan Reynos and Nicholas Grant in the squad, all of whom helped the ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­men’ to an eighth-place fin­ish in Oman.

Tou­s­saint has since re­tired from play­ing and is now the full-time coach with for­mer na­tion­al play­ers Dwain Quan Chan and Glen ‘Fi­do’ Fran­cis as his as­sis­tant coach­es, while goal­keep­er An­drey Rocke has al­so re­tired, with Shawn Phillip, the oth­er mem­ber of the team from 2024 in Oman, opt­ing out from the screen­ing ses­sions for per­son­al rea­sons.

Ac­cord­ing to coach Akim Tou­s­saint, who re­sumes train­ing with the squad at the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre in Tacarigua from 7 pm tonight, the train­ing squad is in good spir­its, and each play­er is putting in the work to make the fi­nal cut.

In the 2023 fi­nal, T&T was led by the goalscor­ing prowess of Eng­land-based Tariq Mar­cano, who tal­lied 17 goals, and Mick­el Pierre and Tou­s­saint, both with ten at the end of the eight-team com­pe­ti­tion, drew 2-2 with the USA in the gold medal match be­fore a 2-3 penal­ty shoot-out loss.

At the World Cup, Tou­s­saint scored a hat-trick in the fi­nal match, but it was in vain as the “Ca­lyp­so Stick­men” were beat­en by Kenya 7-5 in their sev­enth-place play­off at the Hock­ey Oman Venue.

In the round-robin stage, Tou­s­saint had led T&T to a 7-2 tri­umph over the Kenyans in Pool C, along with a 5-5 draw with Aus­tralia and an 11-4 de­feat of New Zealand for sev­en points.

T&T men then went un­der to Malaysia 4-5 in their quar­ter­fi­nal, be­fore an 8-5 loss to Egypt in their fifth-to-eighth-place semi­fi­nal.

The T&T men’s team is al­so prepar­ing for the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, from Ju­ly 24 to Au­gust 4 at the Es­ta­dio de Hock­ey So­bre Ce­sped.

The Hock­ey5s World Cup qual­i­fiers will mark a re­turn to in­ter­na­tion­al hock­ey for T&T af­ter the T&T Hock­ey Board was forced to with­draw from com­pet­ing at last year’s Pan Amer­i­can Cups in Uruguay due to lo­gis­ti­cal rea­sons, main­ly due to the fail­ure to se­cure fund­ing in time for plane tick­ets.

T&T train­ing squad

Teague Mar­cano, Mal­colm Bap­tiste, Leu­mus Nep­tune, Ahkenan­ton Richard­son, Mick­ell Pierre, Jor­dan Vieira, Jor­dan Reynos, Shaquille Daniel, Tarell Singh, Nicholas White­man, Levi An­der­son,

Jo­van Wren, Tariq Singh, Dy­lan Fran­cis, Nicholas Grant, Caleb Giuseppe, Daniel By­er, Ethan Reynos, Joel Daniel, Kai Sut­ton, Ghard­el El­cock.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Akim Tou­s­saint (head coach), Dwain Quan Chan (as­sis­tant coach), Glen Fran­cis (as­sis­tant coach), Kirth Davis (man­ag­er), Kesh­en John­son (man­ag­er), Sharon De Fre­itas (man­ag­er)