THE Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) in its effort to promote youth development in the field of hockey will be hosting the inaugural ‘Igloo Hockey Festival’ beginning today and ending tomorrow.
According to a press release, the tournament will be staged at the GCC ground, Bourda and will include competition for all ages including players under the age of eight years.There will also be competition for players under 10 years old (Mixed Categories), Under-14, Under-17 and Under-21 (Boys and Girls) and Open men and women categories.
The tournament will be the first of its kind to be played on an artificial hockey surface. Since there is no full-scale artificial hockey pitch in Guyana, the tournament features the exciting five-a-side format being played on the miniature-sized field.
This tournament is the club’s first for the year and provides one of the few opportunities for all ages to play the sport competitively.
The GCC hockey team hopes to make this an annual event with participation from both school and club teams in the future.
Several clubs have submitted teams from their development programmes right through to the senior sides.
The release went on to state that apart from the senior competition with teams from hosts GCC, Hikers, Old Fort and Saints, the Under-14 division, featuring teams from five clubs in both the Boys and Girls divisions, promises to be one of great interest.
The Under-21 Boys competition will feature most of the players who recently participated in the Junior Pan American cup in Toronto and who should be in top form.
Matches begin at 10:00hrs both days and run until 20:00hrs in the evening.