Trinidad and Tobago men’s hockey team ‘aiming high’ at Junior Pan Am

Coach Darren Cowie (centre) speaks to members of the national men’s junior hockey squad during a training session at the Police Barracks, St James on Thursday. - Joel Bailey
Coach Darren Cowie (centre) speaks to members of the national men’s junior hockey squad during a training session at the Police Barracks, St James on Thursday. - Joel Bailey

THE Trinidad and Tobago men’s hockey team will be aiming as high as possible when they compete at the Junior Men’s Pan American Hockey Championships, which will place from August 21-28 in Santiago, Chile.

Seven teams will be involved at the Junior Pan Am Hockey Championships.

TT, who are listed in Pool A, will face reigning champs Argentina (August 21) and the United States (August 24). Pool B will feature hosts Chile, Brazil, Canada and Mexico.

The TT team have been training, during the past few weeks, at the recently installed astroturf, at the Police Barracks, St James.

TT coach Darren Cowie said on Thursday, “The concept I want to go with, and the staff and the players is that, despite preparations, we don’t want to make excuses. We want to aim for as high as possible because then we’re going to give maximum effort.”

Cowie, a former national captain, also touched on the team’s preparations for the forthcoming tournament.

“We’ve been doing well, considering all the limitations we’ve had, with restrictions, starting and stopping sessions,” said Cowie. “Most of the times we’ve had zoom sessions to take the place of in-person sessions.

“It’s good that we’re now getting a kind of consistent flow in this last month, to get in-person sessions, to get their physical testing up, to get their technical skills up, while the zoom sessions tend to take care of the tactical aspect.”

Captain Teague Marcano is the only player who is not involved with the training sessions, as he is based in England. He is expected to join the team in Chile.

“The good thing is, when we reach Chile, we’ll have some games so he can re-acclimatised with the guys and the system,” Cowie said.

This Championships were originally scheduled to take place from November 30 to December 13, 2020, but the dates were shifted to April 12-25, 2021, and then August 21-28, due to the covid19 pandemic.

Asked about the players’ response, in light of the local covid19 restrictions and the rainy season conditions, Cowie responded, “They’ve been pretty good with it. I guess nothing can be worse than training within a pandemic. At times we’ll have to wear masks to do in-contact drills. The weather is (not a problem) for them in a sense.

“For them, they just need to be on the pitch for as much as possible. Before, we were training at the Diego Martin (Sporting) Complex so when it rained, it got muddy and made training almost impossible.”

This tournament will serve as a qualifier for the 2021 Junior World Cup in India.

TEAM –

Players: Teague Marcano (captain), Malcolm Baptiste, Jacques Poon-Lewis, Tarell Singh, Tyrese Benjamin, Ethan Reynos, Jovan Wren, David Coker, Ghardel Elcock, Caleb Guissepi, Jeremy Nieves, Justin Beharry, Tariq Singh, Aidan Marcano, Roshane Hamilton, Joel Daniel, Nicholas Whiteman, Shawn Phillip; Adam Perreira, Matthew Perreira (reserves).

Technical Staff: Darren Cowie (coach), Akim Toussaint (assistant coach), Sharon Trotman (manager), Alexandria Olton (psychologist), Kanisha Vincent (EDPU performance training).

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