Nigel Si­mon

T&T's se­nior men's hock­ey team mi­nus two of its mar­quee play­ers in Kwand­wane Browne and Dwain Quan Chan will flick off its gold medal bid at the 22nd Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Ve­r­acruz, Mex­i­co against Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic from 11 am to­day.This is be­cause Browne has com­mit­ments with his Eng­lish Pre­mier Di­vi­sion club, Can­ter­bury where he is a play­er/coach while Quan Chan has work com­mit­ments.Both play­ers were al­so un­avail­able for T&T dur­ing its suc­cess­ful cam­paign at the sec­ond In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (FIH) World League first round qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment in Kingston, Ja­maica last month.

Back then, T&T men first over­came Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic 2-0 in a penal­ty-stroke shoot-out af­ter a 2-2 draw in reg­u­la­tion be­fore brush­ing aside Bar­ba­dos 3-1 and host Ja­maica 3-0 to top the four-team round-robin se­ries with eight points, three more than the Ja­maicans, to se­cure the lone spot avail­able to the sec­ond round in Chu­la Vista, Cal­i­for­nia, next year (Feb­ru­ary 28 - March 8).Coach Raphael Govia is hop­ing the team can con­tin­ue on the same path even though lo­cal­ly-based pair, Aidan De Gannes and Solomon Ec­cles, two mem­bers of the team in Ja­maica, were al­so forced to miss the tour­na­ment in Mex­i­co al­so through work du­ties.

In their ab­sence, Govia has draft­ed in ex­pe­ri­enced duo, Mick­el Pierre and Do­minic Young, who were not in­volved in Kingston.The T&T men will next meet Cu­ba on Tues­day and Guatemala two days lat­er, to end pool play while Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Mex­i­co are in Pool B.T&T last won the CAC gold medal in 2002 while it has fin­ished sec­ond on the last two oc­ca­sion to Cu­ba (2006) and Mex­i­co (2010).T&T al­so got bronze in 1998 and coach Govia said its time the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" get back to claim­ing the gold.

Tour­na­ment Pools and Fix­tures

Pool A: Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guatemala, T&T

Pool B: Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Mex­i­co

Sun­day

T&T vs Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, 11am

Cu­ba vs Guatemala, 1pm

Mex­i­co vs Ja­maica, 3pm

Tues­day

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic vs Guatemala, 11am

Cu­ba vs T&T, 1pm

Bar­ba­dos vs Mex­i­co, 3pm

Thurs­day

T&T vs Guatemala, 11am

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic vs Cu­ba, 1pm

Ja­maica vs Bar­ba­dos, 3pm

Sat­ur­day

Fifth to Sev­enth semi­fi­nals, 11am

First to Fourth semi­fi­nals, 1.15pm

No­vem­ber 24:

Fifth place, 11am

Third, 1.15pm

Fi­nal. 3.30pm

Tech­ni­cal Staff

Raphael Govia (coach), Chris­to­bel­la George-Ford (man­ag­er), Zynul Khan (doc­tor), Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (as­sis­tant man­ag­er), Karielle De Bique (phys­io­ther­a­pist)

T&T Men's Hock­ey Team

Dar­ren Cowie (cap­tain), Dil­let Gilkes, Nicholas Grant, Mar­cus James, Shaquille Daniel, Tariq Mar­cano, Ste­fan Mout­tet, Mick­el Pierre, Akim Tou­s­saint, Kiel Mur­ray, An­drey Rocke (goal­keep­er), Jor­dan Reynos, Michael O'Con­nor II, Kris­ten Em­manuel, Do­minic Young, Shane Leg­erton.