March 25, 2018 Match day two of the ongoing West Africa Hockey 5s ended with massive wins for Ghana and Nigeria who trashed Ivory coast and Togo. Ghana played host to their counterparts from Ivory Coast in the first match of the day. Both teams had to play another game because a third opponent was unavailable. The Ghanaian side put up another splendid performance to book a place in the finals. The host dictated the pace of the game as they controlled every department. The Ivorians showed brilliant team play; a performance many saw as an improvement of their game yesterday. However, the expected happened as Ghana won the game beating ivory coast by 13-0. The final game of the day was between Nigeria and Togo. The boys in green were playing their first game of the tournament after a late arrival. Togo who brushed aside Burkina Faso by 11-2 in their first game were in high spirit approaching this game. Mustapha Bala put Nigeria in-front as early as the 5th minute. Daniel Attah scored five goals (8th, 13th, 20th, 22nd and 26th min) with Abdul Aziz Yusif (14th min), Baccas Benjamin (24th min) and Peter John (24th min) getting a goal each for Nigeria. Agbessi Kokou pulled one back for Togo in the 13th minute but time ran out as Nigeria won 9-1. Source: http://isports360.com

March 25, 2018 The first edition of the West Africa hockey 5s commenced at the Theodosia Okoh hockey stadium, yesterday, with wins for host nation Ghana. The tournament seeks to promote youth hockey in West Africa as well as a preparatory grounds for the youth Olympic qualifier in Algeria later this year. Five countries represented with 5 male teams and 3 female teams. The opening game of the tournament yesterday saw Ghana’s female team engage their counterparts from Togo. The Togolese made its first appearance in any hockey tournament started on a more determined note. Their hopes were however, cut short in the 3rd minute when Okine Rafiatu put Ghana in front. the 1st session ended with Ghana 4-0 up. The Togolese came up strong in the second and final session but all efforts proved futile as they were beaten 11-0. Speaking after the game, Togo Female’s coach Kesse Komlan said, “we played with an opponent who has been playing hockey for decades, and we are so proud of how we performed. We are putting things in place and hopefully no team will be able to match us years to come”. In the boys division, Togo got the best of Burkina Faso beating them by 11-2. it was a game between two debutants as both teams made their way into the hockey fraternity for the first time. Togo showed dominance from the start of the game controlling every part of the turf. Their dominance was turned into goals as they scored six at the end of the second session to put the game beyond Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso gained experience from the first two session and played extremely well in the final session. They manged to score two goals with Togo bagging in five more goals. Host nation Ghana engaged counterparts Ivorian in the final game of the day. The boys from Ghana were enthused and eager to do better than their girls. The match started with the host dictating pace with three goals in the first three minutes. Ghana were 7-0 up after the first session. A resilient Ivorian side pulled one back in the second session but Ghana grabbed two more goals to increase their tally before the end of the second session. The Ghanaian side rounded up their scintillating win with six more goals in the final session ending the game 15-1 in favor of Ghana.   Source: http://isports360.com

February 16, 2018 Algeria is the latest member of the African Hockey Federation to drive forwards with its hockey development after many years of little hockey activity in the country. One of the motivations for building a hockey culture in Algeria is the reinstatement of hockey back into the African Youth Games (AYG). Whilst a Youth Olympic Games (YOG) qualifying event has been played in the continent before, qualifying Namibia for the YOG in Nanjing in 2014 where they finished a credible fourth, it is the first time a hockey YOG qualifier will be incorporated into the AYG. This year’s event will be taking place in Algeria’s capital, Algiers, from 18-28 July and the Algerian Hockey Federation are pulling out all the stops to make sure their teams will be competitive at the event. “This third edition of the African Youth Games is expected to attract many National Associations to participate as well as create a momentum for the young generation in Africa to get more engaged with hockey as a sport.” Ahmed Azmy, African Hockey Federation CEO More than 400 young players from Algiers schools and clubs are part of a hockey development programme funded partly by the African Hockey Federation (AfHF). Two coaches from Egypt, Hossam Fouda and Ashraf Shafik, are leading the programme. The coaches bring a lot of international experience with them. They both participated in the Barcelona Olympics of 1992 as part of the Egyptian national team. Hossam became the Head Coach of the Egyptian National team in 2014 and Ashraf became Assistant Coach for the Egyptian Under-21 National team in 2016. Over the next six months, the 400 youngsters will be put through their paces by the two coaches and eventually a boy’s and a girl’s team will be selected to represent Algeria at the AYG. Training is held in Algiers on a recently laid multi-sport artificial turf, which was originally made for soccer. The Algerian Minister of Sport has dedicated this turf to hockey for the training period. The Ministry of Sport is planning to lay down a full size hockey turf to be ready for the AYG in time. If those plans do not materialise, they will prepare the multi-sport training turf for the AYG Hockey 5s tournament. Hockey activity will not cease once the Games have taken place. CEO for the African Hockey Federation, Ahmed Azmy, said: “After the first six months and following the AYG, a second phase of the programme will take another six-month period. The two coaches will be sent to four other different Algerian states to train the schools’ physical education teachers who will in turn train the school students, both boys and girls, to spread hockey all over Algeria.” Azmy is delighted that hockey is receiving such a boost in Algeria. He says: “Introducing hockey in Algeria, originally a non-hockey country, is very important because Algeria is organising the Youth Africa Games 2018, qualifying for the Youth Olympic Games 2018. “For the AfHF, this is an important step since hockey was left out of the multi-sport events since 2003 and this year it is coming back after 15 years of absence. Multi-sport events are very important because the National Olympic Committees are liable for funding the participating teams in all sports, which for hockey will be an incentive for National Associations to participate in such events. “This third edition of the African Youth Games is expected to attract many National Associations to participate as well as create a momentum for the young generation in Africa to get more engaged with hockey as a sport. The AfHF intends to follow-up the progress of this programme by visiting Algeria on regular basis during the coming period.” This development activity is yet another example of Continental Federation’s engaging with the International Hockey Federation’s Hockey Revolution strategy. With an aim of making hockey a global game that inspires future generations, Algeria are an example to other nations looking to reinvigorate hockey by providing access to the sport for young people. For more information about hockey in Africa, click here. Source: FIH

It was double delight for Austria as they added the Indoor Hockey World Cup title to the EuroHockey Championships gold they won in January. it was the closest of finals as the match was drawn at 3-3 and then went to sudden death shoot-out. The hero of the hour was Austria’s Michael Körper, who scored the winning goal in shoot-out, as well as a crucial equaliser during the final minute of the match. Austria’s goalkeeper Mateusz Szymczyk also performed heroics as he saved two sudden death penalties from Tobias Hauke and Christopher Rühr. It was a bitter sweet day for Rühr. He was voted Best Player and was also top scorer, beating closest rival Körper by 19 goals to 17. Best Goalkeeper went to Sasan Hataminejad of Iran and Rising Player award went to Fabian Unterkircher. In the bronze medal match, Iran made history as they became the first non-European team to win a medal at the Indoor Hockey World Cup. The hugely talented Iranian team beat Australia with a classy display of passing hockey. History continued to be made as the venue, the Max-Schmeling-Halle in Berlin played host to the biggest ever audience for an Indoor Hockey World Cup – 8,000 people passed through the gates to cheer their teams on. And so to the matches. Into a hall that was awash with German flags, Germany and Austria took to the pitch for one last match. The players entered through a tunnel of flames, which was fitting as this was a final that was intense, skilful, dramatic and played at a ferocious pace. It was six minutes before a goal was scored and it was one that delighted the crowds. Germany won two penalty corners in quick succession and, although Christopher Rühr saw his shot well-saved by Mateusz Szymczyk in the Austrian goal, the second penalty corner was dispatched with deadly accuracy by captain Martin Häner. Just a minute later and Martin Zwicker added a second. His goal was the result of fine individual skill as he pulled the ball back and then lifted it past Szymczyk. Austria responded to this in the best way possible, with Dominic Uher rattling home a penalty corner in the ninth minute to bring the score to 2-1. The match settled into a rhythm for much of the remainder of the half but with two minutes remaining in the opening period a quick break by Austria saw Tobias Walter pull off a courageous save as Austria broke through via the nifty stick work of Benjamin Stanzl. Seconds later, Walter’s counterpart Szymczyk did exactly the same at the other end of the field to deny Fabian Pehlke. Five minutes into the second half and Rühr added to the scoreline. He rattled home a penalty corner and as he roared in celebration it was clear just how much was invested emotionally in this match. One thing was always certain, as EuroHockey Champions, Austria were not done yet. It was fitting that Körper should score and he added to his own tally and brought his team back into the game with seven minutes left on the clock. What happened next is as dramatic as sport can get. With a few seconds on the clock Körper scored from a penalty corner and sent the match into shoot-out. Both ‘keepers have been outstanding all tournament and so they continued to perform as they took centre stage. At the end of the first round it stood at 2-2 and sudden death beckoned. After a save apiece, it was Hauke’s turn. His attempt was saved and it was almost a given that Michael Körper would be the player to seal champion status for Austria. In the bronze medal match earlier in the day, Iran made history by becoming the first non-European country to win a medal at the 5th Men’s Indoor Hockey World Cup. They did it by sticking to their own unique style of incisive indoor hockey. The tactic that proved to be the undoing of Australia was the long diagonal pass out of defence that by-passed the Australia press. For Australia, their energy and dynamism was on show but this was not to be their day as they hit the cross-bar and upright at crucial times in the game. The opening minutes of the match were cagey as the two teams tested each other. Both teams played an open, passing game in the mid-court but tight defences at either end meant there was little in the way of goal mouth action. This all changed in the 14th minute as Iran suddenly upped the pace. A blistering run down the right-hand side of the pitch by Reza Norrouzzadeh split the Australian defence and Navid Taherirad was on hand to push the ball smartly into the goal. Seconds later Taherirad nearly made it two as he was again left in acres of space and his shot rasped wide of the post. As the half drew to a close an Australia player was given a green card and Iran made the most of their man advantage. Behdad Beiranvand took the ball wide on the left and slipped to Norrouzzadeh. As Benjamin Rennie attempted to block the shot, the ball bounced cruelly over the Australia keeper and rolled into the goal. After the break Iran continued to turn the screw, moving the ball at pace and not giving Australia a chance to make those all important connections or get any sort of rhythm to their game. When Australia did break, the element of good fortune that is so important in hockey was missing. Jake Sherren skilfully created space of himself only to see his clever shot striking the cross bar and bouncing harmlessly away. Iran put the game further from Australia’s reach when Mohammed Asnaashari sped down the right-hand boards and slipped to Hamid Nooranian, who held his nerve to lift the ball over the head of the advancing Rennie. Two more goals followed as Australia threw everything into attack. Iran

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