Roger St Rose, president of the T&T Hockey Board (TTHB) has welcomed the return of the sport via its Outdoor season after a three-year hiatus.
St Rose was speaking at the official opening ceremony of Outdoor Hockey in T&T at the T&T Police Service Sports Club Barracks Ground, Western Main Road, St James on Sunday which was followed by the teams' march past, and the men's and women's Open Division Hockey5s tournament.
Hockey5s is a shorter, faster version of the traditional game, and the teams play with five players each (including the goalkeeper), unlike regular hockey where each side consists of 11 players.
A Hockey5s playing field is around half the size of a regular hockey field and is fully surrounded (side lines and back lines) by approximately 10 cm high boards, similar to that of indoor, to encourage continuous and dynamic play.
This is the newest format in the sport and there is the upcoming Pan American Cup, a Hockey5s World Cup Qualifier, scheduled for June 4-11 in Kingston, Jamaica where T&T teams will seek to qualify for the inaugural World Cup.
Among the clubs expected to compete are Magnolias, Ventures, Paragon, Malvern, Notre Dame, Police, Defence Force, Queen’s Park Cricket Club, and Shape.
Speaking at the opening, Attorney-At-Law St Rose said, "After four years due to the COVID-19 and some challenges with acquiring a new artificial surface we got the opportunity to use the St James Police Barracks venue to start the opening of the Outdoor season.
"The competition today (Sunday) is a hybrid of a normal hockey tournament as normally it's an 11-a-side or six-a-side, but the FIH has a new format called the Hockey5s, so it's continuous hockey and it's exciting and we are opening the season with this format because we will have our teams (men and women senior) going to Jamaica for the qualifying tournament to the FIH Hockey5s Worlds in June.
'The official season will not get going until the next two to three weeks and this will be on a normal league basis as such.
With regards to the number of teams competing at the opening, St Rose, the first umpire from T&T to officiate at the Olympics in the 1996 Atlanta Games and the FIH World Cup noted that there were fewer teams taking part than before, which could be put down due to no hockey being played locally in recent time, making players and teams seem disinterested.
To address this situation the TTHB boss said, "We are hoping that with the start of the Outdoor season and with the Development Program that within a year or two we should be getting some enthusiastic players coming through and building back the structure that we had before.
"So, we are hoping just like most other sports that resumed after the pandemic to recoup the players we have lost based on our development program which is being restarted with the help of the Sport Company of T&T (SporTT) where we target schools and communities, so we are hoping to build back our base based on sustainability and capacity in our sport via these means.
"And in a year or two we should have a good strong development program ongoing so we will have a feeder for the clubs locally going forward," explained St Rose, a member of Malvern Sports Club.
A member of the Officials Committee of the Federation of International Hockey (FIH) and the Umpires Committee of the Pan American Hockey Federation (PAHF) St Rose was also optimistic that the sport will soon return to its home at the National Hockey Centre in Tacarigua with the month of July the set deadline.
Back in 2019, the local hockey fraternity was expecting a spanking new $1,356,000 AstroTurf surface, its first in 14 years for the start of the 2020 T&T Hockey Board season after er Douglas Camacho, chairman of the Sport Company of T&T (SporTT) confirmed the arrival of the turf from German supplier Polytan, and the commencement of the relaying of the surface.
The issue surrounding the turf resurfaced followed an assessment by a specialist that the elastic bands of the sub-base were good enough to be part of the new installation of the top surface being done by Polytan, the Germany-based manufacturer of synthetic sports turfs, which in the end turned out to be an inaccurate assessment.
Since then the local hockey fraternity and more so the national teams and local clubs have had to miss out on competitions, locally and internationally which has led to a decrease in the player pool at all levels.
Commenting on the issue, St Rose, who was appointed TTHB president in December 2021 unopposed said, "Over the past few years through the Sports Company we have gotten back the impetus, and the money through SporTT to relay the carpet (artificial turf) with new contractors.
"So the process has started in terms of relaying the surface with a certification of completion date of July 2023. So, within the next few months, we should have a new surface properly relayed and prepared for normal outdoor-size field hockey.
"In terms of our local outdoor competition we are also hoping to look at some other venues to have much more options for matches during the season," said St Rose.