Every year, Petro-Canada gives out 55 grants to Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls. Since 1988, the FACE Program has supported close to 3,000 Canadian athletes and coaches. According to the Petro-Canada FACE Grant website, “Petro-Canada’s FACE Program supports up-and-coming athletes when they need it most – when they are striving to represent Canada at the Olympic or Paralympic Games, but don’t yet qualify for government funding.”
To reinforce the importance of positive role models and the support that coaches provide in young athlete development, Petro-Canada offers the grant to a player/coach combination. Jamie Wallace and Inderpal Sehmbi from Field Hockey Canada’s U21 national team program were recipients of the 2018 Petro-Canada FACE grant.
For Sehmbi, he said the grant comes at a great time for him as he is working towards a Master’s degree in high performance coaching. The additional funds will allow him to work towards the higher level of NCCP Coaching Certifications.
“Some coaches also use it for coaching or training opportunities,” he said. “….as well, you could go abroad with a team or go to coaching courses around the world.”
Sehmbi went on to say that similar to athletes, coaches sacrifice time and money to become certified and developed coaches. This grant is a way to offset the cost of missing work in order to coach. Wallace said that for him, receiving this grant is a good reinforcement that he is on the right path.
“It shows that my hard work is paying off,” he said. “It definitely motivates me to keep pushing to try to make the senior team.”
Wallace has immediate goals of making a senior team tour and wants to contribute to the Men’s National Team’s quest for Tokyo 2020 qualification.
List of Field Hockey Canada recipients
2016 – Brandon Pereira & Inderpal Sehmbi
2017 – Thomson Harris & Geoff Matthews
2018 – Jamie Wallace & Inderpal Sehmbi
