Ministry to consider hockey leagues throughout Sabah
Published on: Friday, February 12, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: The Youth and Sports Ministry will consider organising hockey leagues in the State to further develop local talents, especially among young players.Minister Datuk Tawfiq Abu Bakar Titingan said the Ministry is in the process of planning a holistic approach to revive the former glory of hockey in the State."We are taking all aspects into account, including development, infrastructural needs, financial and also the establishment of a league in Sabah.ADVERTISEMENT "The main challenge in the State is its huge size where we have 26 districts which are sorted into six zones."By doing so (zoning), we try to overcome the geographical limitations by introducing a hockey league in each zone," he said after a courtesy call by Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) officials at his office, Thursday.The visit was led by MHC President Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal.Tawfiq said hockey can be played at a competitive level the whole year round through the introduction of the leagues which are "very important in producing good hockey players."ADVERTISEMENT At the same time, he also urged greater cooperation between MHC and the Ministry as well as other stakeholders in the effort to promote and develop hockey in the State.Subahan who concur with Tawfiq, said the State has a huge potential especially in its talent pool.
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"We are in the midst of re-arranging our coaching structures as part of our action plan and we want to inform the Sabah Hockey Association (SHA) that we need to work closely with it as well as other states."We see that Sabah has a huge potential even though, currently, there are only three male players and two female players from Sabah in the centralised development programme."And that's why we arranged the courtesy call today (Thursday) to inform the Minister on our action plan… Sabah plays an important role as we see that there's a lot of potentials from Sabah."As such, we brought along Terry Walsh (MHC Technical Director) and Tai Beng Hai (Development Programme Director) to visit potential sites where we could open more training centres for young players at school level as well as district level," Subahan said.Currently, he added, there are only three training centres in Sabah and that it is not sufficient in view at the size of the State."My team was here last month and they had identified a few locations. We are now in the midst of coordinating with the Education Ministry and the National Sports Council before the implementation."And the Minister (Tawfiq) has also given a 'green light' to ensure that our effort will succeed not only in Sabah but in Malaysia as well," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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Subahan also expressed hoped that there will be more Sabahan players to be absorbed into the national team so as to help MHC materialise its aspiration to catapult the national team among the world's top 10 ranking in the next three to four years.Also present were SHA Acting President Dr Charanjeet Singh Gill, SHA Honourary Secretary Avtar Singh Bal and other officials.