THE Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) has dubbed 2016 as ‘the year of the juniors’, with several major accomplishments for that division. According to president of the GHB Philip Fernandes, “We’ve had several junior tournaments that were successful locally and I think it has broadened the base of the juniors. A lot of kids are getting to enjoy the game and to participate in the game.”
The GHB boss was quoted during an interview yesterday as saying, “We hope to repeat the same type of events for 2017 and then perhaps look forward to getting new targets for these kids; start to put together national junior squads and that sort of thing so they can have something to focus on going forward.”
“The clubs themselves, at the encouragement of the board, each held its own competition and all of them had a junior feature. So we had a lot more children playing the game. We had Under-10s, Under-14s, Under-17s, Under-19s and a lot of those kinds of competition,” Fernandes continued.
He added that the performance of the men’s junior national team at the recent Pan Am tournament in Toronto, despite finishing closer to the bottom, portrayed the skill needed to belong in that section of the world.
“Every single match, even against the top teams, they competed and gave a good account of themselves,” he added.

Downsides to 2016
The GHB boss believed that there were some downsides to the sport in 2016, saying, “Our outdoor season was cut short. We wanted to be able to at least complete the outdoor tournaments that we usually complete.”
He continued, “The weather was a factor, the availability of grounds was also a factor but I think our focus on several other things (the junior tournaments) caused this as well.”
Moving forward, however, Fernandes believes that with more planning, the board can achieve its required goals.