By Rawle Toney
Come November 27-30 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, the Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) will be hosting its fifth annual Diamond Mineral Water International Indoor Hockey Festival.
At a press conference held yesterday by the organisers, it was confirmed that once again Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) under their Diamond Mineral Water brand will be the gold sponsor of the event along with Ansa McAl under their Carib brand.
Co-ordinator of the event and former president of the GHB, Philip Fernandes stated that they were more than happy to have DDL and Ansa McAl once again on board for the fifth staging of the event.
“Our gold sponsors DDL have been great partners of hockey and we have enjoyed working with them on this event from its inception through their Diamond Mineral Water brand. We appreciate their continued support of hockey and attribute a large degree of our success to their perseverance,” said Fernandes.
Touching on the tournament, he said that the veterans’ competition, which was introduced in 2006, has added some quality to the tournament and brings to these shores some of the more notable hockey players of the region who may now have retired from the international circuit.
Fernandes also thanked the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports for making the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall available for the event and noted that the lack of an artificial surface in Guyana makes it critical for them to have access to a quality indoor facility.
Marketing representative of DDL, Alana Johnson, said that her company was more than pleased to be associated with the event for the fifth consecutive year and said that it will be looking to stay around as long as possible. She added that her company only associated themselves with organizations and companies that showed a great deal of professionalism and said they were more than delighted to work with the Guyana Hockey Board.
So far the GHB has received confirmation for teams from Trinidad, Canada and the USA and for the first time a male and female team out of Tobago.
Eight foreign teams have confirmed attendance at the event with four more showing an interest which, when added to the seven participating local teams, would enable the tournament to showcase a possible total of 19 teams.
The winning teams of both the male and female tournaments will receive US$1000 while the runners-up will cart off US$500. The winner of the veterans’ tournament will receive US$500 with the second place team receiving incentive prizes.
When the tournament was held last year, it was the first time that two local teams won both the male and female event. Everest Hikers won the male event while the GCC won the female event. The veterans’ category was won by Fatima of Trinidad and Tobago.