Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
DMW International Indoor Hockey Festival cancelled
The Guyana Hockey Board was forced to cancel this year’s Diamond Mineral Water International Indoor Hockey Festival National due to inadequate facilities.
Phillip Fernandes
The festival normally takes place at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and was scheduled this year for December 2 to 5.
The Cliff Anderson Sports Hall recently underwent some infrastructural improvement works which included replacing a large area of the playing surface which was completed just in time for the recent Inter-Guyana Games. According to the President of the Guyana Hockey Board, Philip Fernandes, the renovations were much needed and the newly installed area of the floor has greatly improved the playing surface.
He added however that there was now a disparity in the level of the floor as the new floorboards sit a bit higher than the old ones.
“Wherever the new boards meet the old ones, there is a ridge that makes the hockey ball fly into the air as it passes across” said Fernandes “this makes it unsafe to play hockey and of course our player’s safety has to take precedence over anything else”.
While Fernandes applauds the efforts of the Ministry of Sport to improve the surface, he is disappointed that the timing coincided with the International Festival. He remains optimistic however that if the rest of the floor is completed early in the New Year, that next year’s festival will have a new and improved floor.
“The newly installed area of the floor looks good and is much flatter than the old one. This means that upon completion, the new floor will have removed one of our big impediments to attracting European teams who will not travel to compete on a floor that is uneven,” said Fernandes.
Secretary of the Guyana Hockey Board and Tournament Director for the Festival, Gregory Sills, expressed his disappointment and that of the local hockey-playing fraternity in the cancellation.
He however advised that foreign teams, when notified, remained optimistic about visiting for the 2011 staging of the Festival.
This year’s Festival would have been the 6th being staged by the GHB and has become the tournament that attracts the largest foreign contingent in the region. Sills thanked the sponsors of the tournament for their understanding on the matter and advised that the 2010 hockey season will therefore come to a premature close as this was to be the final tournament of the year.
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