Lae hockey turns to junior development

LAE HockeyAssociation is hoping to revive the sport in the province and the Mamose region, through the inclusion of junior hockey under two new age categories.
The association will start this year’s pre-season at the end of this month with the children’s category for nine to 12 years old and the juniors (13-15 years old), in a “short modified version”.
All parents of interested children are urged to support the concept.
The driving force behind this concept is Lae hockey icon Sae Dowara, predicted the code was on the verge of dying out and saw this initiative as the answer to reviving the code.
“The future of hockey now depends on these young generation,” the former president of Lae hockey, who is now among just a handful of senior players, who are still involved with the code, said.
He acknowledged that other codes were growing through the success of their junior programmes, and  proposed the idea during the 4th PNG Games in Port Moresby during the federation meeting.
Following that proposal, the short modified games was trialed at Mildfordhaven primary school in Lae for a month, and the inclusion of junior hockey will now see six players per team using half of the playing field as well as shorter time in girls and boys divisions.