World hockey league pushes off today

With the Theodosia Okoh Hockey Stadium in Accra in excellent shape now, all is set for the prestigious Hockey World League Round 1 tournament to take centre stage in Accra from today to Sunday.

At the time of going to press yesterday, reports indicated that the tournament directors, umpires, technical officers and officials from the International Hockey Federation (FIH) were already in town for the high-profile tournament which will go down as one of the best hockey events to be hosted by Ghana in recent times. The four-nation tournament involves male and female teams from Namibia, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. However, the ladies from Namibia have pulled out, leaving only their male team to battle with the others for a place in the Hockey

World Round 2 tournament. “Both the national male and female hockey teams are in excellent shape, ready to win their respective matches to make themselves and the nation proud, ”the chairperson of the Local Organising Committee, Madam Elizabeth Safoah King, told the Daily Graphic in an interview yesterday.

According to Madam King, the two national teams started residential camping a week ago to fine-tune their strategies to defeat their opponents, insisting there is no way Ghana will not qualify top lay in the Hockey World Round 2.“The ‘Host and Win’ slogan is on course because the players are well motivated to excel in this tournament,” she assured, adding that winning will propel the teams to a higher stage where Ghana would participate in the Common weath and Hockey World Cup tournament which had eluded the country for some time now.

The national male hockey team will kick start the tournament with an encounter against Namibia at7:45 pm today. The female division will start with ladies from Kenya slugging it out with their Nigeria counterparts at 1 p.m. today, while their male compatriots take the stage at 5.20 p.m. At 3:15 p.m. tomorrow, Ghana’s female team take on Kenya, with their male teams doing battle at5:30 p.m.