Field Hockey Canada > Sehmbi named Men’s Under-21 coach for busy year ahead

Field Hockey Canada and the Men’s National Program have named Inderpal Sehmbi as the Under-21 Men’s National Team coach effective immediately and through 2016.

Sehmbi will be tasked with leading technical and tactical aspects of the daily training environment for Junior Development Squad athletes en route to two key tournaments in the next year. Sehmbi will be team up with assistant coach Geoff Matthews.

“I am excited to continue to be a part of the development of our young Canadian athletes,” says Sehmbi. “My goal is to help assist these athletes in their goals towards being top international hockey players.”

Canada hosts the 2016 Junior Pan American Championships in Toronto next June. The tournament serves as a 2016 Junior World Cup qualifying event, with the top two finishers earning a spot at the Junior World Cup in India in December 2016.

“He’s a very good teacher of the game and he’s a good storyteller,” says Canada’s Junior Men’s National Team Director Paul Bundy. “He has a very good rapport with young talent. It’s a natural progression for him to move forward with this group.”

Sehmbi has served as an assistant coach for the Under-21 team for the last five years. He was also the Under-18 Men’s National Team head coach, a capacity in which he led a team of young athletes to a silver medal at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.

As an athlete, Sehmbi went through the same scenario as the athletes he will be leading are about to. In 2000, he was a part of the Canadian Under-21 team that finished third at the Junior Pan American Championships in Santiago, Chile, qualifying for the 2001 Junior World Cup.