Mick­ell Pierre of De­fence Force and Amy Olton of Shandy Carib Mag­no­lias were vot­ed hock­ey's "Sports­man and woman of the Year" re­spec­tive­ly at the T&T Hock­ey Board (TTHB) awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, on Sat­ur­day.

Both were cho­sen in the top five men and women play­ers of the year af­ter lead­ing their teams to the ti­tles in the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion Out­door League.

Apart from Pierre, the top five men play­ers al­so in­clud­ed Jor­dan Viera, Sha­keel Daniel, Michael O'Con­nor and Teague Mar­cano while among the women, Aman­da George from Ven­tures, Dana-Lee De­gannes, Saman­tha Olton and Ter­isa Leza­ma joined Amy as the top women's play­ers for last sea­son.

Team Paragon took home the Na­tion­al In­door Knock­out ti­tles for men and women, as well as the Men's Open Di­vi­sion third place tro­phy. The Open Di­vi­sion men ti­tle was tak­en by Queen's Park Crick­et Club while Ven­tures se­cured the women's equiv­a­lent.

Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho, pres­i­dent of lo­cal hock­ey, had great news for the large gath­er­ing, shar­ing that hock­ey's wait for the resur­fac­ing of the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre in Tacarigua is com­ing to an end.

Ca­ma­cho said, "The new turf could be laid down by April once there are no more hic­cups."

The fra­ter­ni­ty was made to wait for two years for the new turf to be pur­chased from Ger­man sup­pli­er Poly­tan, al­though monies had been set aside to buy it.

"The Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T fi­nal­ly trans­ferred the amount of mon­ey need­ed to start the project of ship­ping the as­tro­turf, lift­ing up the ex­ist­ing mat and re­plac­ing it with the new one," he said.

It is un­der­stood the en­tire process is cost­ing the gov­ern­ment $1,356,000 and that the fi­nal pay­ment is ex­pect­ed to be made when the turf has been put down.

Ca­ma­cho in his speech to scores of awardees said he is pre­dict­ing that as soon as the Car­ni­val sea­son ends, work on the sur­face will be­gin. How­ev­er the com­ple­tion of the project will de­pend on the weath­er con­di­tions, Ca­ma­cho said, not­ing that hot and dry con­di­tions are need­ed for the mat to be tak­en up and put down.

Mean­while, the old turf will not be dis­posed of, as the sport is set to ben­e­fit fur­ther from the for­ma­tion of two as­tro­turf pitch­es in To­ba­go and at the Po­lice Bar­racks in St James. Ca­ma­cho said his hock­ey board has al­ready held talks with Jo­mo Pitt, Sec­re­tary of Sport and Youth Af­fairs at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith for the old mat to be split in­to two and used to resur­face a fa­cil­i­ty in the sis­ter-isle, as well as the Po­lice Bar­racks for de­vel­op­ment pur­pos­es.

With the theme of yes­ter­day's func­tion, "Re­flec­tions of the Goalline", Ca­ma­cho at­tempt­ed to give an ac­count of hock­ey's his­to­ry and the suc­cess­es it has achieved to date.

He said, "The 1967 T&T team that won the Pan Amer­i­can Games sil­ver medal in Cana­da still re­mains one of the coun­try's great­est achieve­ments."

The TTHB has al­ready out­lined its itin­er­ary from now un­til 2022 and it in­cludes a bid to host the Pan Am Cup in 2021. If they are suc­cess­ful, fans may see both the men and women hock­ey teams against the best in the Pan Am re­gion.

HO­N­OUR ROLL

Pri­ma­ry Schools (Girls): 1 Mu­cu­raopo Girls RC 'A', , 2 St John's Girls RC/Diego Mar­tin Girls RC, 3 Mu­cu­rapo Girls RC

Pri­ma­ry Schools (Boys): 1 Dun­ross Prepara­to­ry, 2 In­ter­na­tion­al School/Es­he's Learn­ing Cen­tre, 3 Diego Mar­tin Boys RC

SEC­ONDARY SCHOOLS

Girls: 1 Holy Name Con­vent, 2 St Fran­cois Girls, 3 St Joseph Con­vent (POS)

Boys: 1 Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, 2nd St An­tho­ny's Col­lege, 3 St Mary's Col­lege

SCHOOLS U-20

Girls: 1 Holy Name Con­vent, 2 St Joseph's Con­vent (POS), 3 South East Port-of-Spain

Boys: 1 Fa­ti­ma, 2 St Mary's, 3 St An­tho­ny's Col­lege

TTHB LEAGUES

Open­ing Day win­ner Men De­fence Force

Open­ing Day win­ner Women - SC Mag­no­lias

OUT­DOOR LEAGUE:

Mixed Vets: 1 Malvern, 2 QPCC, 3 Fa­ti­ma

Most Goals- Raphael Govia (QPCC) 16 goals

Trin­i­ty Women: 1 Paragon, 2 Har­vard Check­ers, 3 Po­lice

Most Goals- Sha­nia Ga­jad­har (Paragon) 5 goals

Trin­i­ty Men: 1 Shape, 2 QPCC, 3 Malvern

Most Goals- Daniel Smith (Shape) 6 goals

Na­tion­al Out­doors: U-19 (Fe­male): 1 SC Mag­no­lia, 2 Paragon, 3 Raiders

Most Goals- Kait­lyn Olton (SC Mag­no­lia) 11 goals

U-19 Men: 1 Paragon, 2 Shape, 3 Carib

Most Goals- Kelon Skeritt (Paragon) 16 goals

Mixed Vets: 1 Fa­ti­ma, 2 QPCC, 3 De­fence Force

Most Goals - Melis­sa John­son (QPCC)- 11 goals

Trin­i­ty Di­vi­sion Women: 1 Notre Dame, 2 SC Mag­no­lia, 3 Po­lice

Most Goals- Rac­quel Dow­den (SC Mag­no­lia) - 3 goals

NA­TION­AL IN­DOORS:

Trin­i­ty Di­vi­sion (Men): 1 Shape, 2 Carib, 3 Notre Dame

Most Goals - Shel­don De Lise (Shape) 14 goals

Open Di­vi­sion (Women): 1 Ven­tures, 2 Paragon, 3 SC Mag­no­lia

Most Goals - Arielle Williams, Brit­taney Singh, Aman­da George - 6 goals

Open Di­vi­sion (Men): 1 QPCC, 2 De­fence Force, 3 Paragon

Most Goals - Akim Tou­s­saint (Paragon) 13 goals

Na­tion­al In­door KO Se­ries (Men/Women): 1 Paragon

OUT­DOOR LEAGUE:

Cham­pi­onship Div (Women): 1 SC Mag­no­lia, 2 Malvern, 3 Har­vard Check­ers

Most Goals- Daniel­la Mar­tin (Malvern) 9 goals

Cham­pi­onship Div (Men): 1 De­fence Force, 2 Malvern, 3 Petrotrin,

Most Goals- Jer­ry Bell (QPCC) 10 goals

Source