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The Women’s Senior National Championship started yesterday in Vancouver, BC. The level of play at this year’s event will be varied as a number of provinces put their Under 21 Canada Games teams up against some provinces stronger Senior teams and the Junior National Women’s team.

Nonetheless the play is hard and fast and the younger athletes will certain come away with a better idea of what it takes to play at the Senior level and hopefully having realized their objective of gaining some valuable competition prior to the Canada Summer Games.

FHC and the Provincial associations at the May 2005 meetings in Ottawa discussed the revamping of National Championships. After numerous attempts, both FHC lead and PSO lead, which resulted in limited success in getting provinces to consistently enter teams, a further review was conducted by FHC and the PSO representatives. At the May meetings they looked at:
· categories - club, regional, indoor, open, closed, school, etc.
· administration of tournaments - funding, cost-sharing, entry fees, etc.;
· identity, e.g., social, high performance, development, showcase, etc.; and
· hosting – facilities, grass, turf, permanent locations, timing, etc.


It was determined that the Senior Nationals should showcase the best athletes in the country and in order to do this teams may not just be provincial in composition but rather there may be generic teams made up of elite players. It was also determined that on the development side regional events should still be held perhaps looking at a progressive age group over a 3-4 year period similar to what soccer does at the age group level, e.g., U16 to U18 to U21. How exactly the generic teams will be selected and what age groups would work in hockey is being worked on by a small working group.

The Women’s Seniors in Vancouver will be followed next weekend in Winnipeg by the men’s and women’s Under 18. At all the FHC events either the National Coaches, Sally Bell and Gene Muller or their representative will be in attendance looking for Canada’s next hockey stars.

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