Country gets international hockey citation

 THE International Hockey Federation said PNG plays an important role in the development of hockey in the region.

Federation president Leandro Negre said the country has the best facilities apart from New Zealand and Australia. 

Negre who has had an interesting discussion with Minister for Sports Justin Tkatchenko and the PNG Sports Foundation executive officer Peter Tsiamalili during his visit here, said the world hockey governing body was ready to work in partnership with the PNG government to support hockey. 

“We have some interesting plans and we are ready to take it from there depending on approval,” he said.

Negre who is described as ‘man of action’ by the hockey fraternity said he would like to see PNG take the lead in hosting several IFH-sanctioned events such as the Olympic and the World Cup qualifiers and the World League in PNG.

The World League competition is open to all affiliates around the globe.

He said the current venue can host any international sanctioned tournament and PNG can perhaps invite teams from Asia such as Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong to be part of this event.

This is Negre’s first visit to PNG but not in the region as he travelled to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia on a number of occasions to see hockey developments.

He endorsed the good work of the president of Oceania Hockey Federation Pam Elgar in pushing for spreading the hockey bile in the region.

The New Zealander Elgar has been the driving force for hockey in the region.

Elgar who sees PNG as important member of the Oceania hockey family said there has been a slow growth of hockey in PNG since Kaluwin Potuan took over as president of PNG Hockey Federation. 

“He has done a fantastic job and as a result, he was voted as the vice president of Oceania Hockey Federation and that has been fantastic,” he said.

Elgar said she was absolutely delighted to visit PNG because they were celebrating hockey’s return to the Pacific Games. 

“Hockey was not part of the last Pacific Games and now they are working with member countries in the region to make sure it is included in the next Pacific Games in Tonga (2019 and Tahiti (2023),” she said.

The Oceania hockey boss said Tahiti was bidding for 2023 so the federation would want to talk to them to include hockey in the Pacific Games programme.