The new hockey season is upon us and Old Fort Hockey Club began their quest in search of new blood, finding and rewarding some extraordinary young talents when the club hosted its junior three a-side competition recently at St. Joseph’s High School patio.
At a simple presentation ceremony at the St. Joseph High School last Saturday, the 20 participants were awarded with useful gifts by the club’s junior programme coach, Tony Cole.
Some of the awardees with Junior Programme Coach, Tony Cole (standing at extreme left)The winning team after their final game; (from left) Omar Hopkinson, Kamai James and Courtney Marcus
At the award ceremony, Cole explained that the club held its junior three-a-side tournament in November as part of their 2016 agenda.
“We held a small junior tournament, it’s the end of old fort hockey club junior programme and we are rewarding those who did well” Cole said.
The Junior Programme Coach highlighted that a lot of the boys are from the rural areas and it is good to see them actually finding the sport fun, “most of the boys are fairly new they are from different areas in Guyana, some all the way from region nine [Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo].” Not only did the competition sort out new found talent, “It was to encourage the youngsters to come forward and help them become active members in society.”
In a short message to the participants, Cole urged the youngsters to remain actively involved in sports, highlighting the many health benefits as well as the added plus of being gainfully occupied and out of trouble.
The club in its effort to maintain vibrancy and have a consistent pool of young players saw most of them playing the sport for less than five months; the team of Omar Hopkinson, Kamai James and Courtney Marcus emerged victorious.
Hopkinson was voted the Most Valuable Player of the tournament while Marcus was duly declared the most Improved Player.
The tournament was made possible through the kind contributions of corporate Guyana including ToCo, Edward B. Beharry and Company Limited and Devah online shopping.
Old Fort Hockey Club sprung to life in 1975 and has since that time racked up an impressive resume on the local scene. According to the records, the club got its name from a donation product promotional T-Shirts which was presented to them by Banks DIH through Jerry Gouveia and its first male and female captains were Jeremy and Kerry Roberts with the latter team being formed in 1980.
Today it is through the rigorous training sessions at the St. Joseph High School that the club is able to become one of the more dominant teams in hockey.
