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Monday, February 24, 2025

PAHF hails Craig-Rousseau, Richardson as role models

by

1414 days ago
20210413
Maureen Craig-Rousseau

Maureen Craig-Rousseau

T&T’s Mau­reen Craig-Rousseau and Reyah Richard­son were among four women high­light­ed by the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (PAHF) as be­ing a fan­tas­tic role mod­el as part of their In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day cel­e­bra­tions on March 8.

Writ­ing for PAHF.org, Sarah Jug­gins not­ed that In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day was a chance for the world to come to­geth­er to cel­e­brate women and their achieve­ments.

And at PAHF they are blessed to have some mag­nif­i­cent and tal­ent­ed women op­er­at­ing at all lev­els of the game.

From play­ers to coach­es, to um­pires, to of­fi­cials - our hock­ey com­mu­ni­ty proves that, when it comes to abil­i­ty and per­for­mance, every­thing is equal.

In nam­ing four stand-out con­trib­u­tors, PAHF se­lect­ed Craig-Rousseau, Richard­son, USA’s Pam Stu­per and Chile’s Cami­la Caram.

Craig-Rousseau is a for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T To­ba­go Hock­ey Board (T&THB).

Cur­rent­ly, she is a mem­ber of the Fed­er­a­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey (FIH) Ex­ec­u­tive Board and PAHF Ex­ec­u­tive Board and has been in­volved in hock­ey at the high­est lev­el through her roles as Tour­na­ment Di­rec­tor and Tour­na­ment Of­fi­cial.

In her work­ing life, Craig-Rousseau is al­so high up the lad­der of achieve­ment. An im­pres­sive ca­reer path has seen her move through the ranks with­in the fi­nan­cial world to her cur­rent po­si­tion – Or­gan­i­sa­tion man­ag­er at First Cit­i­zens Bank.

Work­ing along­side Craig-Rousseau at hock­ey tour­na­ments, you get a mea­sure of the strength and ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the for­mer T&T Hock­ey Board Pres­i­dent, and she ad­mit­ted that she has had to de­vel­op the dual char­ac­ter­is­tics of re­silience and tenac­i­ty to suc­ceed in work and sport. She adds that her mantra is “Treat oth­ers as you wish to be treat­ed,” and she adds, “that has worked out pret­ty well.”

There is lit­tle doubt that Craig-Rousseau has faced chal­lenges along the way but she had tak­en con­trol of her des­tiny by em­brac­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and mak­ing sac­ri­fices along the way. The re­sult is some­one who feels con­fi­dent enough to say that she can “stand shoul­der to shoul­der with any­one in any board room.”

At the top of her ca­reer path and hav­ing achieved the high­est po­si­tions with­in hock­ey ad­min­is­tra­tion, Craig-Rousseau says that she now sees part of her role as “pro­vid­ing sup­port and en­cour­age­ment to oth­er women to reach their goals and po­ten­tial.”

An­oth­er T&T hock­ey of­fi­cial who has grasped the op­por­tu­ni­ties of­fered through our sport is Richard­son.

Cur­rent­ly, Richard­son, a for­mer na­tion­al team play­er, is T&THB Hon­orary Sec­re­tary and she is an ac­tive and pro­fi­cient tour­na­ment di­rec­tor and tech­ni­cal of­fi­cial.

She is al­so a sci­en­tist, work­ing as a lab­o­ra­to­ry su­per­vi­sor at HP­CL.

When she re­flects on the path­way she has fol­lowed with­in hock­ey, Richard­son says it is im­por­tant to take learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties from every ex­pe­ri­ence – good and bad.

“Each ob­sta­cle or stum­bling block to me is an op­por­tu­ni­ty and it has shaped and mould­ed me for the next step and the next lev­el in my ca­reer. I was for­tu­nate to en­ter the sport when there were strong women in roles of lead­er­ship and they paved the way for us young girls com­ing in­to the sport.”

Now a role mod­el in her own right - both in her ca­reer as a sci­en­tist and on the hock­ey field, Richard­son has these words of ad­vice: “Make your voice heard, and chal­lenge when nec­es­sary, but al­so re­spect and un­der­stand the per­son you are deal­ing with be­cause you will meet peo­ple from all sorts of dif­fer­ent back­grounds. But you can choose to find a way to deal with any sit­u­a­tion.”


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