T&T se­nior men’s hock­ey coach, Dar­ren Cowie is tar­get­ing fin­ish­ing at the top of the ta­ble when the in­au­gur­al Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cups (PAC) Tour­na­ment flicks off at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus Turf in Kingston, Ja­maica from June 4 to 11.

The ten-team men’s com­pe­ti­tion which will serve as the con­ti­nen­tal qual­i­fi­er for the FIH Hock­ey5s (five-a-side) 16-team World Cup card­ed for Jan­u­ary 2024 in Mus­cat, Oman will see T&T face reign­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, and Paraguay in their four-team Pool B se­ries while USA, Puer­to Ri­co, Pana­ma, and host Ja­maica com­prise Pool A.

The lo­cal ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­men’ open their tour­na­ment ver­sus Cos­ta Ri­ca on June 4 from 4.40 pm fol­lowed by pool match­es against Guatemala on June 5 al­so from 4.40 pm, and Paraguay on June 6 at 6 pm to end group play.

The na­tion­al team will be led by the ex­pe­ri­enced Akim Tou­s­saint and in­cludes fel­low long-serv­ing na­tion­al in­door and out­door play­ers, goal­keep­er An­drey Rocke, Shaquille Daniel Mick­ell Pierre, Jor­dan Reynos, Jor­dan Vieira, and Nicholas Tris­ton Grant, as well as Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano, who is com­ing off a suc­cess­ful sea­son with South­gate Hock­ey Club, help­ing the club to pro­mo­tion to the Out­door Pre­mier Di­vi­sion as well as one of two pro­mo­tion spots in the six-club Eng­land Hock­ey League Adult Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion Two.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries in both men’s and women’s com­pe­ti­tions, the teams will con­test cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals with the win­ners of each pool meet­ing the fourth-placed team in the oth­er while the sec­ond and third-placed teams clash as well to de­ter­mine the semi­fi­nal­ists.

From the semi­fi­nals, the two win­ners will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­offs.

The men’s teams to qual­i­fy so far for the World Cup are Bel­gium, Hol­land, and Poland (Eu­rope), and Egypt, Kenya, and Nige­ria (Africa) along with host Oman, while Ocea­nia and Asia are yet to stage their qual­i­fiers from which three na­tions each will qual­i­fy.

Com­ment­ing on his teams’ chances at the tour­na­ment, Cowie was quick to point out that while many may think that due to the heavy di­et of in­door hock­ey that the lo­cal play­ers have played, it will be easy for us to dom­i­nate.

How­ev­er, the T&T coach sound­ed a cau­tious alarm and warned against tak­ing the op­po­nents for grant­ed.

He said, “While our play­ers have been no strangers to the in­door hock­ey for­mat, the hock­ey5s pos­es a kind of new chal­lenge in that the ball is al­ways in play due to the use of the back­boards, while one less play­er is on the field as com­pared to in­door (six), along with the field be­ing a bit big­ger as well.

He added, “This means there is a lot more ground for play­ers to cov­er, which will chal­lenge their fit­ness lev­els, and the play­ers can al­so score from any­where on the field as well, and not with­in a stip­u­lat­ed area as com­pared in the oth­er for­mats.”

“So, its all well and good for us to look at the less-known teams like Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma, Puer­to Ri­co, and Paraguay and think that they will be pushovers, but we have to keep in mind that those na­tions were in­tro­duced to hock­ey5s al­most six years ago to help grow the sport in gen­er­al in their coun­try.”

“So look­ing at the group, fac­ing Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, and Paraguay could al­so prove to be a tricky hur­dle for us, just as be­ing a com­fort­able group, and we must first fo­cus on these teams, and not just USA in we are to com­plete our tar­get of not just fin­ish­ing amongst the top three to qual­i­fy, but be­ing the over­all cham­pi­ons of the tour­na­ment.”

In terms of the se­lec­tion of the team, Cowie said, “My­self and as­sis­tant coach Dwain Quan Chan in nam­ing the team looked at a lot of tech­ni­cal as­pects and opt­ed to se­lect a squad with a lot of flu­id­i­ty and which can be in­ter­change­able as well with the abil­i­ty to play at both ends of the field.”