MHC ‘return to the good old days’
Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) competitions committee will concentrate only on elite programmes (junior and senior) following the decision to trim down the number of teams in the Junior Hockey League (JHL).
As for development, the confederation want their affiliates or states to put in greater efforts in churning out quality players.
This came about when the MHC trimmed the Junior Hockey League (JHL) from 30 teams last season to only 14. The tournament is expected to start on June 14.
“We are sending back development work to the states. The MHC will only concentrate on elite programmes from the Junior World Cup onwards.
“This is how it used to be in the old days, and it worked well,” said committee manager Brian Fernandez yesterday.
Previously, development used to be carried out by the states who also recommended players for national training.
“Somehow, everything was lumped onto the laps of the MHC and we started doing development as well as elite programmes. This not only increased our expenditure but also left the states with very little to do.
“This was explained to the state secretariats in a recent meeting. Two or three objected, but the rest just listened.
“The MHC have now decided to trim the number of teams in the JHL. This way, only the best and most prepared teams will play in the junior level, while the rest will compete in state-level tournaments.
“States can have Under-16, Under-18 and Under-21 tournaments to select the best and then form one strong team to play in the JHL, instead of one affiliate placing three teams in the league,” Brian added.
This plan was accepted by the Negri Sembilan HA, who are now thinking of merging the best from their three junior teams to form one strong side for the JHL qualifiers.
Ten teams are confirmed from last season, while four more will be selected from the qualifiers.
The automatic qualifiers are SSTMI Thunderbolts, Anderson Thunderbolts, SSP Thunderbolts, UniKL-Johor HA, BJSS Thunderbolts, PJCC Tigers, SSTMI, and SMS Resilient (Division One); Malacca Warriors and MSSPP-PSHA (Division Two).