National Junior Men’s and Women’s camps run at UBC
It was an action-packed week at the UBC campus in Vancouver, BC as both the men’s and women’s junior national programs were in town for training camps.
The junior men’s camp ran from Monday to Wednesday and consisted of physical testing, technical sessions and a three-game intra-squad scrimmage. The women’s camp is running Thursday-Sunday and will follow a similar structure. Both teams had approximately 40 athletes in attendance.
On the men’s side, many of the core returning players have played in two Junior Pan American Championships (including last year in Surrey), and a Junior World Cup. It was a very young cohort when they began this build and now have upwards of 25-30 junior international caps to their name.
According to Geoff Matthews, head coach of the Junior National Team, this experience is critical, not only for success at this level but looking forward to the senior national team as well.
Matthews has stewarded this program over the past several years and has experience at the Youth Olympics as well. He’s worked with many of these athletes since they were 15-16 years old. He is looking forward to the upcoming competition cycle including the Junior Pan American Games in August and the Junior World Cup in December.
On the women’s side, many of these athletes have come through Field Hockey Canada’s youth development system and have been on one, if not two youth tours in the past two years, exposing them to international competition. Having that pathway has allowed athletes to secure international matches before making the jump to the junior national team program. The women’s team will also return several athletes from last year’s Junior Pan Ams. The pipeline pathway is set up in such a way that athletes have international competition every step of the way leading toward the possibility of being selected for the senior national team.
Kyle Marks is the newly minted head coach of the Junior National Team. He’s formally worked in the NextGen environment as an assistant, as a coach on youth tours and in the daily training environment for several years. He knows and has scouted many of these athletes, but this week is the first time he’s really seen the whole group together. He said he’s looking forward to the competition cycle and to build a really strong team.
From this event, the squad will continue to move forward with competition rosters being formed from this group heading to the Junior Pan American Games in August and the Junior World Cup in December.
