Pan American Hockey Federation’s (PAHF) Honorary Treasurer, Mr. Derek Sandison was in Jamaica for a Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) conference held over two days, on February 7 & 8, 2013 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston. Mr. Sandison was here representing PAHF President, Mr. Antonio von Ondarza who was unable to attend due to medical reasons. The PASO conference saw the regions National Olympic Committees as well as the governing bodies for the different sporting disciplines in attendance.

The main highlight of the conference was a presentation by the Toronto 2015 committee, Toronto being the host of the 2015 Pan American Games. There were also presentations from four countries who are hoping to host the 2019 Pan American Games. The bid countries that made presentations were Argentina, Chile, Peru & Venezuela.

Mr. Sandison also met with the Board of Directors of the Jamaica Hockey Federation (JHF), the governing body for field hockey in Jamaica. One of the matters discussed at that meeting was the development of field hockey in Jamaica and also throughout the entire Pan American region. It was noted that the last time Mr. Sandison visited Jamaica, PAHF donated equipment to the JHF and as a result of this donation the number of teams participating in the Schools League has increased considerably. This programme is a PAHF initiative to assist smaller countries in the region to acquire hockey equipment from a central location in Miami, Florida. Also during this visit to Jamaica, Mr. Sandison was able to watch one of the games from our Under 19 Schools Division and he said while he saw some good skills, there were aspects of the game that could be improved with additional coaching help and this was an area in which the PAHF was willing to assist.

In the meeting with the JHF the acquisition of a new artificial playing surface was also raised and the discussions included potential sponsorship and synergistic opportunities to improve the infrastructure of not only Jamaica but also other countries in the region. The benefits of this type of investment would of course include the hosting of high level tournaments locally, generation of funds through the staging of these tournaments which could be put back into more player development programmes and an increased visibility of the sport of field hockey throughout the PAHF region.

Mr. Sandison also gave an update of the “World League” which is a competition developed by the FIH to give all nations an opportunity to play or strive to play at the highest level. The World League is broken down into four rounds; Round 1 which has been completed, targeted countries ranked 24 & below and the winners have advanced to Round 2 where they will be playing against teams ranked 12th to 23rd in the world. The teams participating will not only gain playing experience but will also earn ranking points towards their own world ranking.

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Article Contributed by: Adrian Cross, Local Hockey Correspondent, Jamaica

Pictures Taken by: Nicholas Beach, Local Hockey Correspondent, Jamaica