adminTHIRTEEN hockey teams drawn from around the country will be vying for top honours at the Southern Region Hockey TournamentA� at Kumalo Hockey Stadium from today until Sunday.
The three day tournament will see nine teams namely Hippo Valley, Rams, University of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo Athletic Club (BAC), Eradicators, Lions, Bulawayo Hockey Club (BHC), Midlands State University (MSU) and Khanimambo battling it out in the mana��s category.
In the ladies category, only four teams namely BAC, Hippo Valley, UZ and MSU will be out to see who the best amongst the four teams in hockey is.
The president of the Matabeleland Hockey Board, Kalpesh Pershotam said the tournament is the first of its kind.
a�?At this time of the year, the Africa Cup of Club Championship (ACCC) is held, however, with the junior World Cups (Chile for ladies and India for men) the ACCC has postponed the championship to next year, so we decided to host this tournament as an interim measure,a�? he said.
They had initially invited teams from Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. However, none of themA� confirmed their participation.
Nine teams in the male category will be split into two pools where both pools will have round robin matches.
The winners of the respective pools will play against each other while second, third and fourth placed teams in both pools will also square-off against each other.
a�?The ladies have only one pool where they will play a round-robin after which the winner will play against fourth place and the runner up will play against third place in a semi-final and then the respective winners will play in the final,a�? explained Pershotam.
The finals will be on Sunday.
Bongani Ndlovu