HAS tournaments slated for May
KUCHING: The Hockey Association of Sarawak (HAS) is organising a series of tournaments scheduled for the next two weekends.
The tournaments, to be held at Sarawak Hockey Stadium, are sixa-sides for men and seven-a-sides for women.
The six-a-sides are for U-12, U-15, U-17 boys and Open category.
The seven-a-sides are for U-12, U-15 and U-17 girls and also an Open category.
“We will play the matches six minutes a half and just switch ends with no rest periods,” said HAS secretary Kangot Awan.
The U-12 tourney for both boys and girls will be played on May 13 with the U-15 category scheduled for May 14.
The U-17 will take to the pitch on May 20 with the Open category to be played on May 21.
The men teams will be allowed to register eight players while the women teams will be allowed nine.
The fees for the age-group teams are RM30 while the Open teams will be charged RM50.
The final day for registration is May 11 with the team managers’ meeting to be held at 6pm at the stadium the same day.
“This tournament is basically for our players to utilise their skills learnt during the training sessions,” said Kangot.
Hopefully, the teams would also train more at the stadium to prepare for the upcoming tournaments, he added.
Kangot acknowledged that there is a gulf in abilities among the teams.
“That is why we are contemplating a mercy rule where the match will be ended if there is a certain goal difference during the match,” he said.
However, he is leaving it up to the team managers to decide on the rule and whether it will be implemented.
The competition season goes into hiatus after this due to the upcoming Ramadan fasting month.
It will all come alive again on July 8 when the TNB Sarawak Hockey League starts.
They are looking to get a minimum of 10 teams for the men’s league and five women teams.