High-school hockey a no-go

HIGH SCHOOL hockey players who had high hopes of resuming competitive action after the lifting of the Disater Risk Management Act (DMRA) in March, and the Inter-Secondary School Sports Association’s (ISSA) commitment to a restart, will have to wait a bit longer.

The Jamaica Hockey Federation (JHF) has decided to cancel the high school league this year because teams lack preparation and exams are pending.

JHF president, Fabian Stewart, said the school season usually starts late January and the federation was hoping to get competitions going then.

However, most schools had no programme ongoing and despite the interest of a few, it was insufficient to stage any form of competition.

“Most schools were not ready. We usually start late January or early February but the DMRA was still in place. When it was finally released, a lot of schools did not have any programme in place,” Stewart insisted.

He reasoned that even if they could not get the regular 11 versus 11 competition, they planned to host five-a-side tournaments, just to give the youngsters the opportunity to play competitively after two years of no activity.

However, with exams already i n progress, it would have been difficult to hold competitions late in the school year.

“We were going to have a five v [versus] five competition but they were just not ready and then exams started. And we play the school tournament early (in the year) because we want to clear the way for the exams in May and June. So it is really about timing.

“A few schools would have played but they were not fully ready,” he said.

In order to get the youngsters playing ahead of the school competitions in 2023, Stewart said his organisation would be restarting their youth development training programme over the summer.

From that programme they hope to restart the U21 league and stage other tournaments. He also wants to host one or two mini school competitions in the new school year before the major competition in January.

“We are looking at small tournaments schools can play. Also our Saturday programme. We want to get back the numbers to 60, 70 players on a Saturday morning and give them higher-level coaching. Then we can have a junior tournament during the summer. “But we want schools to get back to playing. Hopefully, we can get a lot of youngsters back in the game this summer and then we can start working with the schools again,” he said.

The federation has also decided to forgo any international youth tournament on the calendar this year, until they can get the young players active once more.

“There are international youth tournaments coming up but we can’t think about those until we get the youngsters playing. So we may have to forgo some of those tournaments.

“We have to get back to the stage of having competitions. We have to build back the base and then have the appropriate coaching applied to the base. But first we have to get back the competitiveness at that level,” he said.