Well, since in my last col­umn I con­grat­u­lat­ed the Women Red Force crick­eters on bring­ing home the Re­gion­al Su­per 50 Cup, they’ve in­spired T&T’s hock­ey he­roes. Join me in con­grat­u­lat­ing the Trinidad & To­ba­go un­der-21 men’s hock­ey team on their re­mark­able 3-1 vic­to­ry over Brazil in Bar­ba­dos. That’s right, Brazil – the land of sam­ba, beach­es and tal­ent.

The win was the ic­ing on the cake, as be­fore the fi­nal, they were al­ready as­sured of qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games. They will now be strut­ting their stuff at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay in Au­gust. Pre­pare for some se­ri­ous stick ac­tion, folks!

The next set of con­grat­u­la­tions must go out to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Men’s Na­tion­al Se­nior Foot­ball Team on their su­perb vic­to­ries over a Cuban team that brought in a few tal­ent­ed play­ers not born in Cu­ba but were al­lowed to play for the coun­try be­cause of parent­age or grand­par­ents be­ing born in Cu­ba.

Even though Cu­ba thought im­port­ing tal­ent would solve all their prob­lems, it didn’t make a dif­fer­ence to a T&T team that was as fo­cused as a cat is on a laser beam. The first goal of qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Gold Cup from June 14th to Ju­ly 6th has been achieved, and even though the draw has not been made as to who the T&T War­riors op­po­nents will be, it will be a tough Gold Cup with the likes of Mex­i­co, Cana­da, the USA and Cos­ta Ri­ca among the 16 teams who have qual­i­fied for the tour­na­ment.

Coach Dwight Yorke has done a great job so far, but as he says, it is still a work in progress. He has enough ex­pe­ri­ence to know what is need­ed and the type of play­ers to not on­ly play the sys­tem he wants but al­so to nul­li­fy the dif­fer­ent types of op­po­si­tion. He has the vi­sion, the play­ers, and the swag­ger to make it hap­pen.

There are two mas­sive World Cup qual­i­fiers up­com­ing, against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6th in T&T and against Cos­ta Ri­ca away on June 9th. Both games will be phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly chal­leng­ing for the team, but I do not doubt that Coach Yorke will have them ready to give their best and get them in­to the next round of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. It is a long and wind­ing road that hope­ful­ly would lead T&T to its sec­ond FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Go­ing back to T&T hock­ey, I was hon­est­ly tak­en aback by a com­ment made by T&T U-21 men’s hock­ey coach Glen “Fi­do” Fran­cis. He praised his in­ex­pe­ri­enced group of play­ers, in­di­cat­ing the tour­na­ment was good for his team in gen­er­al. He al­so praised how hard his charges worked, the sac­ri­fices they made, es­pe­cial­ly through the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, and who as­sist­ed the team in their prepa­ra­tions. But then Coach Fi­do went on to say that the hock­ey team need­ed more sup­port.

Now, here’s where the plot thick­ens. T&T’s hock­ey he­roes re­turn vic­to­ri­ous, but their coach drops this bomb­shell that the team needs more sup­port. Now, let me make it clear, I have no af­fil­i­a­tion with T&T Hock­ey.

I played one hock­ey match in my life, and just like the one rug­by match I played, I said, “Nev­er me again.” In hock­ey, an op­po­nent is blast­ing a ball at you from mere feet away with hock­ey sticks fly­ing left and right, while in rug­by, a play­er is tak­ing you out to en­sure you don’t run away from them. I thought, “What mad­ness is this?” for both sports.

Af­ter mak­ing my­self clear on my hock­ey af­fil­i­a­tions, I start­ed to in­ves­ti­gate what Coach Fran­cis said, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, I now un­der­stand what he means, as it seemed to have been a night­mare for the play­ers, the par­ents, and friends of hock­ey – a saga wor­thy of a Net­flix hor­ror se­ries.

First­ly, the team’s trav­el plans were as clear as mud.

They found out they were fly­ing out two days be­fore de­par­ture, which meant sky-high air­fares. And their ac­com­mo­da­tion? Top se­cret, ap­par­ent­ly, but I can on­ly hope that this is not true. Ac­cord­ing to some sources, par­ents were scram­bling to buy team jack­ets and track­suits for their chil­dren to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go, play­ing the roles of cheer­lead­ers, fash­ion de­sign­ers, and sports ad­min­is­tra­tors. They even had to hunt down spon­sors for uni­forms and wa­ter, with a bizarre rule that any ex­cess funds went straight to the Trinidad & To­ba­go Hock­ey Board (TTHB).

My un­der­stand­ing is that for tour­na­ments of this na­ture, you are al­lowed 16 play­ers and 2 trav­el­ling re­serves in case of in­jury be­fore the first game. Still, in this in­stance, the trav­el­ling re­serves had to pay their way. Imag­ine that! The team man­ag­er missed the im­por­tant brief­ing for all the teams on Fri­day morn­ing due to the late ar­rival of the team. Leav­ing Fri­day night and ar­riv­ing at the ho­tel in Bar­ba­dos at 12.47 am, it meant the teams did not get to bed be­fore 2:00 am. No won­der the T&T women were thrashed by Mex­i­co, as their game was sched­uled to start at 10 am Sat­ur­day morn­ing, 8 hours af­ter they ar­rived at their ac­com­mo­da­tion. That is a crime against sleep! The fi­nal straw was when I was told the Bar­ba­dos Olympic As­so­ci­a­tion had to pay for food for the first day for the T&T teams; thank­ful­ly, they were re­im­bursed, but that must have been heav­i­ly em­bar­rass­ing for all in­volved. The in­cred­i­ble sto­ry goes on and on; talk about a plot twist!

In­deed, it is such a shame be­cause hock­ey in T&T is on fire! Hock­ey is one of the on­ly sports that is keep­ing the flag of T&T fly­ing high. Qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup in Hock­ey 5s, qual­i­fy­ing for the In­door World Cup, qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Pan Am games by the Se­nior Men’s Na­tion­al Team, and now the Men’s Un­der 21 Team qual­i­fy­ing for the Pan Am games in Paraguay in Au­gust. They are killing it, and yet, they’re treat­ed like the stepchil­dren of the T&T sports world. It’s like throw­ing a par­ty and for­get­ting to send out the in­vi­ta­tions.

So here is my plea:

1. I hope that the sup­port that is need­ed will be forth­com­ing, as ex­cit­ing days are ahead for T&T Hock­ey. Let’s ral­ly be­hind the Hock­ey He­roes as a na­tion; they de­serve bet­ter than a lo­gis­ti­cal night­mare and a shoe­string bud­get.

2. TTHB, get your act to­geth­er! Com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter, sup­port your teams, and let’s keep this hock­ey mo­men­tum go­ing.

3. To the par­ents, you all are the re­al MVPs. Keep fight­ing the good fight; keep up the work and keep en­cour­ag­ing your chil­dren!

4. To the spon­sors, keep up the great sup­port!

In clos­ing, I want to send out con­grat­u­la­tions to the Siu Butt fam­i­ly on the per­for­mance of Nicholas. Grand­ma Mary, an out­stand­ing goal­keep­er for T&T, and Aun­ty Stacey, prob­a­bly one of the best hock­ey play­ers to grace the hock­ey fields of this coun­try, must both be ex­treme­ly proud.

Ed­i­tor’s note

The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.