T&T se­nior women hock­ey teams face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing to play their Pool B open­er against the USA at the 2022 Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Cup in San­ti­a­go, Chile sched­uled for 3.15 pm on Wednes­day on lit­tle rest time or hav­ing the match post­poned.

This as the sec­ond batch of play­ers on both se­nior women and men teams had their Amer­i­can Air­lines flight from Mi­a­mi, SA de­layed on Mon­day af­ter­noon and on­ly left around mid­day on Tues­day for Chile with an es­ti­mat­ed ar­rival time of 10.55 pm last night.

So far, on­ly sev­en mem­bers of the women's team in­clu­sive of two goal­keep­ers are in Chile af­ter trav­el­ling via Pana­ma City on Sat­ur­day along with some mem­bers of the se­nior men's team as well, and with the match against the Amer­i­cans card­ed for to­day, it is ex­pect­ed that mem­bers of the T&T women's tech­ni­cal staff will make an of­fi­cial re­quest to have the match post­poned to give the play­ers the much-need­ed rest time.

Con­cern­ing the Covid-19 pro­to­cols, all mem­bers of the se­nior women's team re­turned neg­a­tive PCR test re­sults be­fore their de­par­ture and will not need to quar­an­tine.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed on Tues­day by a per­son who is close to the team but does not want to be iden­ti­fied: "It seems like déjà vu for some of the play­ers and tech­ni­cal staff as the ju­nior teams were caught up in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions with re­gards to trav­el arrange­ments for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Tour­na­ments in Pe­ru last Au­gust. Back then the ju­nior teams had to re­main in that coun­try for al­most a week af­ter the com­ple­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion due to poor trav­el arrange­ments, and now with the late book­ings of flights once again, they are back in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion again.”

Last Fri­day, the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment via a me­dia re­lease gave the T&T Hock­ey Board (TTHB) TT$1,611,787.00 in fi­nan­cial sup­port to as­sist with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the se­nior men's and women's teams for the tour­na­ment which runs from Jan­u­ary 19-30.

Be­fore de­par­ture on Sun­day, the “Ca­lyp­so Stick­women” who will al­so meet Pe­ru on Jan­u­ary 21, and Cana­da two days lat­er with both match­es flick­ing off at 1 pm in pool play. The women's team was forced in­to one late change with the with­draw­al of Sha­nia Ga­jad­har, who was re­placed by Nicole White­man.

Three-time win­ners Ar­genti­na, host Chile and Uruguay are in an all-South Amer­i­can Pool A fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of Mex­i­co which forced or­gan­is­ers to re-arrange the group­ings.

T&T was orig­i­nal­ly grouped with Ar­genti­na, Uruguay and Chile.

The 2022 Women's FIH Hock­ey World Cup will be the 15th edi­tion of the Women's FIH Hock­ey World Cup, and will be held in Ter­ras­sa, Spain and Am­stelveen, the Nether­lands from Ju­ly 1 to 17, 2022.

The top team at the end of round-robin play from each pool will ad­vance di­rect­ly to the main draw semi­fi­nals on Jan­u­ary 27, while the sec­ond and third-placed teams in each pool meet in cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals two days ear­li­er to de­ter­mine the two re­main­ing semi­fi­nal qual­i­fiers.

Both fi­nal­ists and the third-place fin­ish­ers in the Pan Amer­i­can com­pe­ti­tion which ends on Jan­u­ary 29 will earn places at the16-team FIH World Cup.

The T&T ap­peared at the Pan Amer­i­can Cup three times pre­vi­ous­ly in 2004 in Bar­ba­dos when they end­ed eighth, and in 2009 when they placed fourth in Bermu­da, and four years lat­er they end­ed sev­enth in Ar­genti­na.

T&T Team: Sha­nia De Fre­itas, Avion Ah­ston (co-cap­tain), Aman­da George, Anya Sealy, Tamia Roach, Saarah Olton, Saman­tha Olton, Kait­lyn Olton, Fe­li­cia King, Kim­ber­ly Young (co-cap­tain), Gabrielle Thomp­son, Zene Hen­ry, Brit­tney Hingh, Mia Otero, Ar­resia Sandy (goal­keep­er), Talia Seale (goal­keep­er), Nao­mi Samp­son, Nicole­White­man

Trav­el­ing Re­serves: Tahi­rah Wynne, Sarah Samp­son (goal­keep­er).

Tech­ni­cal staff: An­tho­ny Mar­cano (head coach), El­lis Chance (as­sis­tant coach), Jen­nifer Lan­der (man­ag­er), Tere­sa Leza­ma (as­sis­tant man­ag­er/video­g­ra­ph­er), Den­no­ra George (masseuse), Kevin Mc In­tyre (phys­io­ther­a­pist).

Women's sched­ule

Jan­u­ary 19:

Cana­da vs Pe­ru, 1 pm

USA vs T&T, 3.15 pm

Ar­genti­na vs Uruguay, 5.30 pm

Jan­u­ary 21

Pe­ru vs T&T, 1 pm

USA vs Cana­da, 3.15 pm

Chile vs Ar­genti­na, 5.30 pm