With a place at the World Cup in 2018 the ultimate prize, five women’s teams and five men’s teams from the PAHF region will be contesting the HWL Round Two events taking place between January and April next year.
All the women’s teams will be appearing at the same venue in Vancouver, Canada, from 1 to 9 April. Contesting the top two places, which gives automatic qualification to the prestigious HWL Semi-Finals, will be host nation Canada (World ranking 18), Mexico (WR: 30), Trinidad and Tobago (WR: 34), Uruguay (WR: 24) and Chile (WR: 23). The five PAHF representatives will be joined by India (WR: 12), Belarus (WR: 19) and France (WR: 24).
The men’s teams will be competing over two venues. Canada (WR: 12) will be travelling to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where they face Oman (WR: 31), Egypt (WR: 20), Bangladesh (WR: 32), China (WR: 18) Sri Lanka (WR: 40), Ghana (WR: 43) and Fiji (WR: 51).
Meanwhile, the other PAHF teams will be staying on home continental soil. The event will take place in Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago, where the host nation (WR: 33) will compete alongside USA (WR: 27), Barbados (WR: 48) and Chile (WR: 25). These teams will be joined by Malaysia (WR: 14), Japan (WR: 16), Russia (WR: 22) and Switzerland (WR: 30).
Assessing the chances of each of the teams, based on the past few seasons, all the signs would suggest that Canada men and women should enjoy a good showing at the HWL Round Two events. Both the men and the women won through to the last HWL Semi-Final, which would have provided a great deal of experience in playing tournament hockey against high ranked teams. Canada men also qualified for the Olympics and that is an experience that will be very fresh in the memory for many of the players as they take to the pitch in Dhaka.
Canada women will be without their top scorer from the 2015 HWL competition, as Thea Culley has recently announced her retirement from the national squad. Coach Ian Rutledge said he hoped the prolific scorer and role model had passed on knowledge gleaned from her experiences to the next wave of players wearing the red and white of Canada.
Uruguay women also qualified for the HWL Round Two event in 2015, where they won the hearts and minds of the hockey supporters in Valencia, Spain, with their dashing hockey skills and willingness to fight for every ball. That they came 10th out of ten will not worry the team, they took points off South Africa, who sat 19 ranking points ahead of them and each match was a learning curve for the team.
At the recent HWL Round One event in Chiclayo, Uruguay produced a virtually flawless performance in the women’s competition to claim four wins from four matches, scoring 19 times without conceding on their way to a first place finish and a safe passage through to HWL Round Two. However, they were pushed hard by Chile, who were ranked one place higher and had beaten Uruguay into fifth place at the Pan American Games in June last year. That Uruguay held their nerve to win a must-win match by a 1-0 goal margin on the final day of the event shows that if nothing else, their previous HWL experience has given captain and goal keeper Rosanna Paselle and her team nerves of steel.
With both teams through to the next round and only one ranking point separating them, the outcome of any meeting between Uruguay and Chile in Vancouver should be totally absorbing for the neutral hockey fan.
Chile men are another team hoping that the upwards trajectory continues. A third place finish at the Pan American Games last year has been followed up by a dominant display in the recent HWL Round One competition. The team ranked 25th in the FIH World Rankings were on blistering form in Chiclayo, powering to five straight victories with 44 goals scored and none conceded to reach Round Two in some style.
Opposition will be aware that Chile’s goal scoring potential is spread across this exciting squad. Among the players who found their way onto the score sheet in Chiclayo were Ignacio Contardo, Matthias Dummer, Juan Amoroso, Jan Berczely and Axel Richter. With this depth of goal scoring ability, the South Americans will certainly pose a threat to all comers in Tunapuna.
Two teams who garnered praise for their performances at the HWL Round One event in Salamanca, Mexico, were USA men and Mexico women. Both the men and women were in unstoppable form as they racked up huge scores in their respective competitions.
In the women’s event, Mexico’s Michel Navarro was out and out top scorer as she found the back of the net 13 times, while her compatriots Marlet Correa and Arlette Estrada both scored six goals apiece. That Mexico dominated the goal scoring statistics is not surprising – they scored 46 goals in four games.
USA men were equally ruthless in front of goal with William Holt topping the goal scorers’ table on 11 goals – seven from penalty corners.
USA coach Chris Clements said that he was delighted with his team’s performance, adding: “We scored some high quality goals with several different goal scorers. We will look to take this momentum forward.” But Clements and his team will not be satisfied with anything less than a top place finish in the next round: this is a team of ambitious players led by a coach with equally big ambitions.
One of the surprise entries for HWL Round Two is the men’s team of Barbados. A second place finish at Salamanca means the team coached by Dominic Hill can continue to push for higher levels of performance. This was beginning to happen at the HWL Round One event as Che Warner, Akeem Rudder and Mario Moore led a goal charge that wiped Guatemala off the pitch and also ended the ambitions of the host nation. The 3-1 loss to USA was a blot in their copybook, but this is another team on the rise.
For Trinidad and Tobago men, the prospect of playing on home soil against nations that they know they can beat on a good day will be a great occasion for both the players and spectators. For the women’s team the task will be tougher. They are the lowest ranked in their event, with Mexico the next lowest ranked team. In their HWL One encounters, Mexico beat Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 and 4-1 and it will take some serious work between now and then by head coach Brian Garcia and his team to reverse those results.
A lot is at stake for teams participating in these Hockey World League Round 2 events. Whilst vital FIH Hero World Ranking points will be awarded depending on final standings, eight teams per gender will qualify for the Hockey World League Semi-Finals. These will be the top two teams from each event plus the two highest placed teams in the FIH Hero World Rankings of the teams that finish third. So much to play for: so much for the PAHF region to look forward to on hockey’s global stage.
