Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin of Paragon Hock­ey Club has been elect­ed as the new Pres­i­dent of the T&T Hock­ey Board (TTHB).

​She was elect­ed un­op­posed at the TTHB's 28th an­nu­al Coun­cil Meet­ing, held on Wednes­day at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, re­plac­ing for­mer pres­i­dent Willard Har­ris fol­low­ing the elec­tion of of­fi­cers for the 2025-2027 term.

​Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sport on Thurs­day, Mar­tin-Faustin promised a full re­vamp of the sport.

Mar­tin-Faustin ex­plained, "Mak­ing sure that the fra­ter­ni­ty and all of the play­ers and par­ents and sup­port­ers get back in­to the sport, be­cause the sport has tak­en a dip since we didn't have a turf. And now that we have the turf, we need to try to en­cour­age as much as pos­si­ble to have some coun­tries come to T&T and con­tin­ue the sport, to bring some more tour­na­ments in­to the coun­try."

​The in­com­ing pres­i­dent was re­fer­ring to the six-year un­avail­abil­i­ty of the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre fa­cil­i­ty in Tacarigua from 2019 to 2025, which was caused by the botched re­lay­ing of the play­ing turf.

​But at the very top of Mar­tin-Faustin’s and her new ex­ec­u­tive's to-do list, she said, is bring­ing the Board up to full com­pli­ance with the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs (MSYA) and the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT).

Mar­tin-Fautin as­sert­ed, "To make sure that the NGO can go to both en­ti­ties (for fund­ing), be­cause we have a lot of tour­na­ments com­ing up. One of our biggest hur­dles for this year was the fact that our teams could not have gone to Uruguay. So I want to make sure that we are com­pli­ant."

​In Ju­ly of this year, the sport took a ma­jor hit with T&T's non-par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Se­nior Pan Amer­i­can Cup in Mon­te­v­ideo, Uruguay, fol­low­ing the TTHB's de­ci­sion to pull its teams from the tour­na­ment due to a lack of fund­ing. In so do­ing, T&T al­so for­feit­ed a chance to qual­i­fy for the 2026 FIH Hock­ey World Cup in the Nether­lands and Bel­gium, as the top teams from the Pan Amer­i­can Cup moved di­rect­ly to the World Cup.

​Back then, Har­ris stat­ed that the Board was still await­ing the re­lease of $1.9 mil­lion in fund­ing to pur­chase tick­ets for the team, which was com­pound­ed by the MSYA and SporTT's in­sis­tence that the Board need­ed to sub­mit sev­er­al doc­u­ments in or­der to be deemed com­pli­ant to re­ceive the funds. De­lays in this process were al­so com­pound­ed by a change in gov­ern­ment in April.

Mar­tin-Faustin gave an up­date on the mat­ter: "So far, I think we are about 95% com­pli­ant. Our fi­nan­cial doc­u­ments for 2024 have gone in. And I want to keep it that way, to make sure that we are up to date with any re­quire­ments from both the Sport Com­pa­ny and the Min­istry of Sports."

​Mar­tin-Faustin's el­e­va­tion to the pres­i­den­cy cre­at­ed a va­can­cy in the elect­ed mem­ber po­si­tion, which the mem­ber­ship agreed to fill dur­ing the meet­ing. Natakii Bua of Ven­tures Hock­ey Club was se­lect­ed un­op­posed to as­sume the role, join­ing Mar­tin-Faustin as one of five new per­sons tak­ing up ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions.

​The oth­ers were Rob Wy­att, elect­ed un­op­posed as the new sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent; Ak­il Nan­coo as third vice-pres­i­dent over Bua; and Tere­sa Leza­ma as as­sis­tant trea­sur­er.

Mem­bers re­tain­ing their po­si­tions were Garth Bap­tiste (first vice pres­i­dent), ​Rigel Gomes (hon­orary trea­sur­er), An­tho­ny Mar­cano (as­sis­tant trea­sur­er), Reyah Richard­son (hon­orary sec­re­tary) and Ayan­na McLean (elect­ed mem­ber).

Mar­tin-Faustin said she is look­ing for­ward to the full sup­port and ded­i­ca­tion from the ​new­ly ap­point­ed ex­ec­u­tive, which will guide the board’s op­er­a­tions for the 2025-2027 term as the TTHB con­tin­ues its mis­sion to ad­vance the de­vel­op­ment of hock­ey across T&T.

"I'm ex­cit­ed about the new board and to give peo­ple re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and hold them ac­count­able for both them­selves and the fra­ter­ni­ty. Vol­un­teerism is some­thing that we do. That's one of the things I spoke of first. We know it's vol­un­tary, but once you give your­self, I'm hop­ing that you hold to your word. Ethics, equal­i­ty, and trans­paren­cy are some things that I stand by, so that is one of the things that I'm def­i­nite­ly go­ing to hold each board mem­ber to."

TTHB Ex­ec­u­tive

Pres­i­dent: Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (Paragon)

1st vice-pres­i­dent: Garth Bap­tiste (Notre Dame)

2nd vice-pres­i­dent: Rob Wy­att (Prosport)

3rd vice-pres­i­dent: Ak­il Nan­coo (Notre Dame)

Hon­orary trea­sur­er: Rigel Gomes (QPCC)

As­sis­tant trea­sur­er: An­tho­ny Mar­cano (Malvern)

Hon­orary sec­re­tary: Reyah Richard­son (Har­vard Check­ers)

As­sis­tant sec­re­tary: Tere­sa Leza­ma (Malvern)

Elect­ed Mem­bers: Ayan­na Mc­Clean (Ven­tures), Natakii Bua (Ven­tures)