Host club Ventures Hockey Club and the visiting University of the West Indies (UWI) Blackbirds of Barbados will flick off this year’s 19th staging of the Ventures Hockey Club International Invitational Indoor Hockey Tournament, sanctioned by the T&T Hockey Board in a women’s Open Division Pool A match Wednesday.
The opening match, the first of five on schedule will begin at 5.45 pm at the Woodbrook Youth Facility in Port-of-Spain.
In another women’s Open Division clash, another former winner, Magnolias comes up against T&T Police Service in Pool B from 7 pm
Two matches will also be on schedule in the men’s Open category with a Pool A clash between past winners’ and defending champions T&T Defence Force and Fatima flicking off at 7.45 pm followed by T&T Police Service and Notre Dame, 45 minutes later while in the lone Veterans Division encounter, Fatima and T&T Police Service meet from 6.15 pm in Pool A play.
This year’s tournament features teams from neighbouring Caribbean countries Guyana and and Barbados, along with the 15 local clubs contesting matches from 5.30 pm over the first three days, and action all day on the final two days of action, Saturday, and Sunday.
Among the foreign entrants are Guyana’s Georgetown Cricket Club (men, women and veterans), Saints (men and women), Old Fort (men, women and veterans) and from Barbados, the University of the West Indies will feature an open men and women teams.
The local trio of Defence Force (men) and Paragon (women) are the defending champions while Queen’s Park Cricket Club (QPCC) are the reigning veterans champions.
The local clubs expected to compete in the veterans are Malvern, Police, QPCC, Notre Dame, Fatima and Shape while in the men’s Open local quintet of QPCC, Police, Defence Force, Paragon and Fatima will tackle the foreign clubs, and in the women, the quartet of Paragon, Ventures, Magnolias and Police will do battle with the four overseas clubs.
As an added bonus, T&T Federation International Hockey (FIH) umpire Ayanna Mc Clean of Venture Hockey Club, who last month was named as the FIH Women’s “Umpire of the Year” as selected by the FIH Umpiring Committee, will be the marquee umpire over the five days.
The Belmont-born Mc Clean, formerly of South East Port-of-Spain Secondary School and Hofstra University, who has been umpiring at the highest level for the past 16 years, has already officiated in some 230 international matches, including at the last Olympics in Tokyo and at the 2022 FIH Hockey Women’s World Cup.
The highest-ranked women’s umpire from the Caribbean, Mc Clean, the daughter of Franco, herself the first woman from T&T to become an FIH Grade One umpire, will also be at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
This year’s tournament also coincides with the club’s celebration of its 96th anniversary in the sport.