Last week, we pointed up the fact that there will be a tournament held at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex for adaptive field hockey players.
Today, USA Field Hockey announced that it would be sending a team to the inaugural FIH Para Hockey World Cup, which will be held in Amstelveen, Netherlands and Wavre, Belgium, this August.
The format is co-ed, with six players a side on a smaller playing surface. While we don’t know exactly what the player pool is going to look like for this championship, USA Field Hockey has already announced the two co-coaches. Both are veterans of college competition: Heidi Lewis has served as head coach for Catholic University, and Lindsay Jackson is the former head coach at Holy Cross.
Both have extensive player development experience; Jackson with the Sprouts program in Worcester, Mass., and Lewis with the Beyond Sticks program in the D.C. metropolitan area. As part of the Beyond Sticks program, Lewis has organized Sunday play for elementary, middle-school, and high-school-aged athletes with developmental delays.
I know the FIH World Cups are prestigious events in the field hockey world. But an inaugural world-level championship in the Para space is a game-changer when it comes to getting more people involved in the sport.
That can only be a good thing.