11th January 2018: It is always great to ring in a New Year with some fantastic hockey news and the fact that Cyprus will host it’s first ever EuroHockey event is something that we believe needs to be celebrated!
As the Championship rumbles on in Antwerp, the EHF is really delighted that 15 more nations are competing in the EuroHockey Championships II (8 teams) and Championships III (7 teams). An extraordinary 61 games will be played indoors this weekend over the 3 venues.
In Championship II, Turkey and Italy are the 2 promoted teams from Championship III in 2016 and both will be looking to consolidate their position in this Division, the Turks hoping that the home crowd will act as their extra man. However with Netherlands and Sweden now in this second division it is bound to be a tough ask for the newly promoted teams! The Dutch, (ranked 3rd in the world) narrowly missing a semi-final slot in 2016 will be looking to get straight back into the top flight. With veteran Teun Rohof at the helm and indoor legend Robert Tigges both on the field and now in the coaching staff, they will be a force to be reckoned with.
Robert Tigges holds the World Cup in 2015 as captain of The Netherlands (Photo (C) World Sport Pics )Full match schedule here
All games will be streamed live and free via our channel www.eurohockeytv.org
EuroHockey Indoor Championships III, Nicosia
In Championship III, a tough division as it’s a round robin format and a weekend of 21 games, it’s a hard one to predict. Watch out for Belarus though, a team that had fallen down the rankings in past years but missed out on promotion in 2016.
Speaking with Cypriot President Petros Karafokas he said ” Cyprus hockey is very excited to host it’s first ever international hockey tournament. We have 40 volunteers working hard on making this an excellent event. We are hoping to showcase indoor hockey and that we can attract some new young players to the sport as a result of seeing these international teams. Lots of schools have been invited to attend so we hope they will enjoy the spectacle.” Speaking about the Cyprus team he said “We know that this event will be a learning process for our team. It’s a very young team with 4 players aged 16/17.” He added ” I cannot express how indebted we are to Arjen Laar from The Netherlands and Thomas Barton from Scotland who have helped and guided the team, voluntarily, as coaches and manager to get us prepared for this wonderful event.”
The venue in Cyprus
Full match schedule here
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