All roads lead to the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua this Sat­ur­day, as the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League opens for its 2026 cam­paign at 3 pm.

De­fend­ing Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion League cham­pi­ons, Re­boot Tigers, for­mer­ly Met­al In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny (MIC) Tigers, en­ter the sea­son with tar­gets on their backs af­ter clinch­ing the crown in a heart-pound­ing fin­ish last year, se­cur­ing the ti­tle via goal dif­fer­ence in the fi­nal weeks of the sea­son. They re­turn to be­gin their de­fence against a re­in­forced field of con­tenders.

​While the Tigers hold the league ti­tle, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) en­ters the sea­son as the dom­i­nant force in knock­out com­pe­ti­tion. Led by the league’s most clin­i­cal weapon, back-to-back Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) Kali­fa Mc­Collin-Lopez (85.4% shoot­ing av­er­age), UTT swept near­ly every oth­er ma­jor tro­phy last sea­son, in­clud­ing the Open­ing Day and Courts Open ti­tles.

​The ri­val­ry be­tween the Tigers’ de­fence, an­chored by Jere­sia McEachrane, and UTT’s of­fen­sive fire­pow­er will be the cen­tral sto­ry­line of the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion. Adding to the ten­sion in the top flight is the re­turn of tra­di­tion­al pow­er­hous­es Po­lice and De­fence Force, along with the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) Sparks. No­tably, Jabloteh has with­drawn from the league for this sea­son.

The league of­fi­cial­ly in­tro­duces its first-ever Men’s Di­vi­sion this year. Four teams will make his­to­ry as in­au­gur­al com­peti­tors, in­clud­ing Bermudez Unit­ed, De­fence Force, Po­lice, and Re­boot Tigers. This ex­pan­sion aligns with the glob­al push by World Net­ball to el­e­vate the men’s game, pro­vid­ing a for­mal plat­form for male ath­letes who pre­vi­ous­ly on­ly fea­tured in ex­hi­bi­tion for­mats.

For the league’s elite women, the stakes ex­tend far be­yond lo­cal pride. With the Com­mon­wealth Games sched­uled for Scot­land in Ju­ly, the 2026 sea­son serves as an au­di­tion for the se­nior na­tion­al team. Coach­es and se­lec­tors will be watch­ing close­ly as the na­tion’s best com­pete for spots on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

In the ​Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, eight teams will com­pete, in­clud­ing Fire Youth and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean (USC), both pro­mot­ed from the Al­ter­na­tive Di­vi­sion, along­side Bermudez Unit­ed, De­fence Force, Po­lice, Re­boot Tigers, UTT, and UWI.

In the ​Al­ter­na­tive Di­vi­sion, five teams will bat­tle for su­prema­cy. They are Po­lice, Po­lice Net­ball Youth Club, UTC Sparks, UTT, and UWI.

The sea­son tips off with the tra­di­tion­al March Past, ac­com­pa­nied by the Fire Ser­vice band. Fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, ac­tion moves im­me­di­ate­ly to the court for the Open­ing Day Knock­out com­pe­ti­tion across the Pre­mier­ship, Cham­pi­onship, and Al­ter­na­tive di­vi­sions.

​The league’s es­tab­lished for­mats re­main, in­clud­ing the Fast 5. Ma­jor knock­out com­pe­ti­tions in­clude the Men’s Knock­out, the Jean Pierre Chal­lenge Tro­phy (Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion), and the Steve Sar­jeant Chal­lenge Tro­phy (Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion). Both Pierre and Sar­jeant, now de­ceased, were two of the six found­ing mem­bers of the league in 1991.

​With 22 teams par­tic­i­pat­ing this year, the All Sec­tors League con­tin­ues its 35-year lega­cy of fos­ter­ing healthy com­pe­ti­tion, com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, and elite ath­let­ic de­vel­op­ment.