Archive for January 24, 2012
Jan. 24, 2012 — Three years later, doomsday
In 2009, at the Pan American Cup, the United States men’s national field hockey team was an overtime goal away from taking the lone Pan American Hockey Federation automatic berth to the 2010 FIH World Cup.
Three years later, with an interim head coach, one of its best players missing, and a developmental system that is still in the cradle, USA Field Hockey made the decision to pull the men’s team out of a last-chance six-nations qualifier in New Delhi, India.
It’s a shocking fall, to be sure.
And it’s going to lead to much finger-pointing within the American field hockey community that the national governing body of the sport quit on the men’s team while funneling all of its resources — including the former men’s national team head coach — into the women’s side.
“Unavailability of many of the senior players has left the men’s program in a position where our best assembled team has a performance potential well below that required to be competitive in a tournament of this caliber,” said USA Field Hockey technical director Terry Walsh in a prepared statement.
The key unavailability was Patrick Harris, one of U.S.’s best players, and a winner of the Player of the Week award in the Dutch Hoofdklasse. He pulled out of the Pan American Games team citing his work with the Dutch firm Onesails, a custom sail production company.
The announcement of Harris’ non-participation in the Pan Ams, announced on Sept. 16th on the USA Field Hockey website, set off a viral firestorm of Internet speculation on whether there was a split within the team, or whether there was a split between team and coaching staff.
Whatever the case, the all-for-one spirit of the Boys in Blue just three years ago was absent during the Games, and the U.S. team finished fifth.
It’s not the first time in recent history the U.S. didn’t send a team to a particular tournament. A few years back, a women’s senior team was not fielded for a Champions Challenge II tournament, and the lack of rankings points from that event is still hampering the U.S. team’s world ranking.
But this decision is a setback for those (such as this space) who want to see field hockey as a sport for everybody — regardless of race, gender, class, and region — in this country.
