Field Hockey Canada will collaborate with U SPORTS for the 2024 National Championship
This Fall will see the ubiquitous U SPORTS Field Hockey Championship evolve into a Field Hockey Canada property delivered in partnership with U SPORTS.
This is an exciting new dawn for the women’s field hockey pathway in Canada. Since the inception of university field hockey, universities have played a key role in hockey development. University athletes go on to be the sport builders, athletes, officials and supporters of the sport throughout their life. Some athletes progress to junior and senior national teams, and indeed, the university system’s rich history feeds the Women’s National Team program.
For more than five decades, the National Team – both athletes and management – has been built and developed through the university system. While much has changed in the international amateur sporting landscape over fifty years, the importance of university sport to the pathway in Canada remains critical to both aspiring national team athletes as a steppingstone on their national team journey, and equally to those athletes for whom the university environment will be the pinnacle of their sporting journey. It is thus imperative that we continue to evolve and develop the environment to meet the needs of both performance and developmental athletes, coaches and officials.
This new approach has been informed by a consultative process led by Field Hockey Canada’s U SPORTS Advisory Committee. Co-chaired by former national team athletes and Field Hockey Canada board members Nancy Mollenhauer and Deb Whitten, the committee brought expertise from coast-to-coast, representing institution, athlete, local and national needs. Field Hockey Canada would like to thank Beth Ali, Robin d’Abreo, Sharon Rajaraman, Krista Thompson and Barb Carmichael for their leadership.
Mollenhauer, the co-chair, said that this is the culmination of years of work Field Hockey Canada and the U SPORTS Advisory Committee have been dedicated to.
“It’s incredibly exciting that we are able to see it evolve into a wonderful partnership which will continue to grow the game of field hockey at the varsity level in Canada,” Mollenhauer said. “This is an extremely important pathway both for our student athletes and those wishing to perhaps one day represent Canada on the international stage. We are extremely pleased to have Atlantic University Sports taking part and have representation from all university conferences across the country.”
In this move, Field Hockey Canada has embraced the opportunity for a partnership with U SPORTS and participating universities with the vision to build the national championship into a strong asset for our sport and strong value proposition for athletes graduating high school.
The new Field Hockey Canada U SPORTS Nationals will have representation from across the country.
Field Hockey Canada CEO Susan Ahrens explains, “It is as much a vision of the development of community in and through sport, as it is about performance. It is a vision to make the Canadian National Championship the attractive proposition for all aspiring student-athletes, inclusive of both development and performance. In doing so, the long-term development of the student-athlete, as well as that of officials, coaches and management teams will be nurtured, valued and secured for years to come.”
The initial transition of the championship to the new model starts immediately. This fall, the Championship will move from a two-team to a four-team championship. Crucially, all three university conferences will be involved, with Canada West (CW), Ontario University Sport (OUS) and Atlantic University Sport (AUS) conference winners all securing berths, with the final berth reserved for the hosting school. In doing so, the U SPORTS National Championship will see a return of the Atlantic provinces for the first time in the U SPORTS era. Such inclusivity is aligned to Field Hockey Canada values, with the new model delivering diversity, equity and inclusion, which are at the heart of our approach. The inclusion from coast-to-coast is much needed for the continued growth and development of the sport. There is a strong hockey base in the Atlantic provinces and this re-opening of the pathway into the university championship builds on this summer’s return of all three Atlantic provinces to under 18 National Championships.
President of Field Hockey Nova Scotia and the leader of the Atlantic University field hockey league, Sharon Rajaraman, highlights the importance of the Atlantic inclusion in the U SPORTS tournament. Along with the Field Hockey Canda U SPORTS committee, she’s been working for many years to see the Atlantic inclusion in the U SPORTS finals. She says this is huge progress that will lead to continued development of hockey in the Atlantic.
“[Getting our universities back into U SPORSTS] has been a huge process. Our high school development has been great, feeding our athletes into Atlantic University Sports,” she said. “High performance and development come hand in hand, you can’t have one without the other.”
Field Hockey Canada has developed an initial three-year hosting plan to ensure clarity in the planning and stability. Meanwhile, the committee’s work continues with the long-term growth and evolution of the championship the next focus.
Look out for continual updates and reporting on the new Field Hockey Canada U SPORTS National Championship in Fall 2024.
