Nigeria Hockey Federation (NHF) has chosen Rivers State as venue for its three major Hockey events in 2018. This was made known during her board meeting last week in Abuja. The three hockey competitions to be held in Port Harcourt are, the Hockey Masters which comes up next month, the Hockey Super League in August and the Mabisel U-21 in October.
Former Rivers State Hockey Chairman, Arthur Jumbo said his quest for hockey development in the State led to this decision by the NHF.
“It’s my hunger to see that hockey is developed in this State. We did not get it on a platter of gold, somebody advocated for it and I am so happy it is coming at my own time because it has never happened before that a State will stage three major competitions in a calendar year in Hockey.”
Jumbo who is also a board member of the Nigeria Hockey Federation says he will continue to develop the game through school sports with the help of corporate organisations.
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“We have the personnel ready to teach the young ones but we lack equipments which is our biggest challenge. We are already sourcing for sponsors and hopefully they will respond to our demands. Like I wrote to them, we don’t need a huge sum of money but rather, we need hockey shoes, hockey sticks, balls, shin guards, goal keeping equipment and small allowance for the technical crew.”
Other issues discussed at the meeting were; preparation for the Youth Olympics coming up in Algiers, assessment of players and teams at the Ghana Hockey tournament in January, appointment of a national coach or technical coordinator and setting up a constitution to avoid depending on the ministry of sports to conduct their elections.
