SECT IO NS
Hockey
Convenor: Subhas Nathan | Article by: Kanan Packrisamy
THE HOCKEY SCCHOOL OFF AND RUNNING The Hockey Section is proud to announce that it will soon officially launch its much-awaited academy, The Hockey SCChool. In the meantime, we have started the training sessions as an appropriate window opened up. On Tuesday, 31 August 2021, The Hockey SCChool started with 24 kids on the hallowed lawns of the Padang - a momentous occasion as this day had been in the making over the last few years; all the minor details had finally been nailed down and we are now off and running. The Hockey SCChool caters to kids aged five and above and will take in kids of any age as long as they want to learn and be great at the sport of hockey. However, we would like to state that kids who are competent will graduate to become SCC Junior Sports Members (JSM) when they qualify at the age of 13. We nonetheless will continue to allow kids who are 13 years old to train with The Hockey SCChool if they want to enhance their hockey prowess outside of the larger competitive team structure. It is noteworthy that our former club President, Sher Baljit Singh, took special interest in getting The Hockey SCChool started, but pitch unavailability due to F1 and the National Day Parades and other national-level events kept making it hard, and then came COVID-19 restrictions. We have braved all these storms and obstacles and with the help of our current Deputy President Mathavan Devadas, who was also the hockey convenor who first mooted the idea of the academy together with our long-standing coach Kanan Packrisamy. The keen efforts of yet another former convenor Intekhab Khan, who played a telling part in putting together all the pieces, and our current convenor Subhas Nathan helped to pave the way to our eventual start. The Hockey Section would be doing a proper official launch of The Hockey SCChool, of course adhering to COVID-19 safe management measures, in the near future. In the meantime, The Hockey SCChool boasts two kids of two Section Members, two more from Club Members, and 15 nonmember kids who eventually will become Hockey Section JSMs. In time, we are looking to recruit more Section and Club Member kids who have made enquires. Additionally, we have plenty of interest from non-members which is a healthy problem as we continue to try to tame COVID-19 related disruptions, which is a beast in its own right and grow our Section numbers. On the topic of taming and in line with the start of our own academy, the Section incepted “The Hockey SCChool Sports Education Series”. The first of the series was an awe-inspiring umpiring
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course run under strict adherence to COVID-19 Safe Management Measures on Saturday, 18 September 2021. The one-day course was expertly presented by two-time Olympic Games umpire Lim Hong Zhen at our very own Gilmour Room. You will be happy to learn that all 10 Section Members who attended passed the course and can now embark on an exciting umpiring career if they wish to. With COVID-19 continuing to dominate what we can and cannot do, the Section has managed to keep attendance at training at a decent average of 12 Members per session. We have had to stop our Astroturf sessions at Sengkang due to further reduction in allowed group size. We will resume that once we can go back to in the least five per group. Our Monday and Wednesday sessions on the Padang at 5.45pm to 7pm continue unabated.
THE PADANG NOV / DEC 2021
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3/11/2021 12:40:28 PM
