Teams, Officials pleased with preparations ahead of Pan Am Cups

Oct 15, 2017 Sports

The organizing committee of the Pan American Indoor Hockey Cups which begins tomorrow at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) held a press conference yesterday at the Sleepin International Hotel and Carnival Casino.

From left, Adrian Della Mattia (PAHF Tournament Director), Laura Macchiotti (PAHF Events Coordinator), GHB Head Phillip Fernandes and Joseph ‘Reds’ Pereira at the launch yesterday.

The general feeling from all representatives was pleasure in being part of the tournament and high satisfaction with the host venue.
Head of the Guyana Hockey Board (GHB), Phillip Fernandes, explained the significance of the tournament as being a very important event for the Pan American Hockey Federation (PAHF) and especially for Guyana, “It’s the biggest event we’ve ever tried to have here in Guyana and it’s an honour to have been selected by PAHF to host it here in Guyana. We (GHB) are very excited, enthusiastic and we will put our best foot forward to make it a good tournament and a good show.” Fernandes continued and thanked the sponsors of the event which include Platinum Contributor Exxon Mobil, “Tournaments like this could not be run off without a lot of support work. And we would like to acknowledge the fact that we have some strong sponsors including gold sponsors, companies like GTT, Banks DIH, John Fernandes Limited and the GOA to name a few and we hope to make it an event worth of their contribution.”
Present at the press brief was Argentinean Laura Macchiotti, PAHF Events Coordinator, who thanked the GHB for hosting the tournament, “It’s very important for the PAHF to have different countries host games so small hockey countries can showcase big events like this. We know that small federations struggle to get people involved to run a tournament, and you did it quite well, we have a very nice venue and we have everything we need to have a very good event.”
Coach of Uruguay, that arrived since Wednesday and had several training sessions at CASH, Nicholas Tixe, took the opportunity to share his delight with the host venue, “The venue is just fantastic, the floor is superb. Coming from a little country, it’s a really fantastic job in getting everything together and I’m impressed with everything.”
Indoor hockey is a fairly new effort for Guyana because after having competed for many years and not having an artificial pitch to compete outdoors, the GHB had decided that their best chance would be indoor hockey. The men won bronze in their 1st indoor tournament four years ago in Montevideo, Chile and this year the women that lost 2-1 to Uruguay in a practice match on Friday night will be competing for the very first time.
The competition gets underway from 10:00hrs to 20:00hrs tomorrow at the CASH with nine (9) matches. (Calvin Chapman)

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