These are the saplings that grow into trees.
The 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia, may seem an eternity away at this point. But every time a U-14 to U-18 Canadian team now is named in a summer sport, it will form the nucleus of the national senior team that will attempt to qualify and compete in Brisbane 2032.
Two Island players, midfielder Monet Thurbide and forward Neeve Unger both of Victoria, have been named to the Canadian U-16 girls’ field hockey team announced Wednesday for the Den Bosch International Tournament in the Netherlands in April. Unger and Thurbide both play for the Victoria Lynx and Island Wildcats. Forward Kendyll Adams of Victoria, who plays for the Lynx, has been named an alternate.
“It was very difficult to only select 21 athletes for this tour,” sa国际传媒 head coach Kyle Marks of Vancouver said in a statement.
“The future for this group is very exciting. They will be able to continuously push each other and keep raising the bar.”
This will be the first experience in international sports for these players as they look to eventually make the junior national team.
“The group has been working hard. Playing in Europe is a challenging experience that is aimed to improve the group’s skills and not solely focused on results,” said Marks.
“The tour is a learning opportunity, particularly for the players making their first international tour.”
While the power base in Canadian soccer and basketball has over the years shifted from sa国际传媒 to the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal, most of the national-team athletes in field hockey still hail from sa国际传媒 Over half the team, 12 players, are from sa国际传媒 The North Vancouver Sea-to-Sky club leads the way with four players selected for the national side, including goalkeeper Emily Arnet.
The Den Bosch International Tournament is a unique multi-sports elite youth tournament for U-14 to U-18 national teams in field hockey, soccer, basketball and rugby. The honourary Den Bosch alumni ambassadors are 70-time Netherlands capped former Man United, PSV and Real Madrid soccer player Ruud van Nistelrooij, now head coach of PSV Eindhoven, Dutch Olympic gold-medallist field-hockey player and Tokyo Olympics leading-scorer Frederique Matla and .
“When I think of Den Bosch, I always think about the springboard of my career that eventually led me past the most beautiful clubs in the world. From scoring for PSV and Manchester United, to achieving successes with Real Madrid and the Dutch national team. A wonderful time, which started in Den Bosch,” van Nistelrooij said in a statement.
The future beckons for the likes of Unger and Thurbide.
