TOUGH CHALLENGE

By Randy Bennett

Barbados’ junior female hockey players are in for a baptism of fire when the Under-21 Junior Pan American Hockey Championships get underway on the island next week.
However, head coach Cher King has given the assurance that the team is up for the challenge and will not be phased when they come up against some of the world’s best junior teams.
Speaking to Barbados TODAY, King said the team was relatively inexperienced as none of the players had played at the international level.
She said Barbados would be coming up against world-class teams such as USA, Canada, Paraguay and Uruguay in the competition which runs from April 10 to 18 at the National Hockey Centre.
“They have no experience on the international level. Many of them will have their first international cap on home soil, many of them have never played international hockey, far or less been exposed to international hockey at that elite level because many of the girls are now developing and starting from scratch.
“Our programme started with girls at the grassroots level and at secondary school who only recently started playing hockey, so the experience for them is going to be an eye opener, it’s going to be a very challenging tournament, especially given the level of competition that we will be facing,” King said.
“But they are open to it and they have accepted the challenge of understanding that a tournament of this caliber and only having seven months to prepare is very difficult, but to do the best that they can and gain knowledge in the long run for maybe preparation for another Under-21 tournament or for the ones old enough to move up into the senior team programme.”
Despite that disadvantage, King promised the team would give its all whenever it took to the hockey turf.
“My expectation is to take one game at a time and one quarter at a time and to set team goals and set individual goals. Overall my expectation is to have a good showing and we’ve been talking a lot in our team meetings about playing with heart and giving of our best and not giving up, because it’s going to be a challenge, it’s going to be difficult to face players of that level of hockey with their skills and basic fundamentals really, really high and theirs are now progressing and starting to reach that level,” the head coach pointed out.
“I want to have a good showing, especially against those elite teams and the girls understand they have to fight until the very end, but I would like to see how we match up against Guyana. I want to see where the Caribbean region needs to go…”
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb