The Junior Pan American Championships are set to burst into life this spring-time. At the end of March (29th March to 10 April), the women’s event will get underway in Tacarigua, Trinidad & Tobago, while in May (20-28th May) the men are off to Toronto in Canada.
At stake? A place for the top two teams at this year’s FIH Junior World Cup. The women’s Junior World Cup will take place in Santiago, Chile, from 24 November to 4 December, while the men’s event takes place in India from 1-11 December.
The importance of the Junior Championships was reiterated by Pan American Hockey Federation president Alberto ‘Coco’ Budeisky, who said: “The PAHF considers the junior tournaments, both women and men, to be vital for our sport. These two tournaments, apart from the fact they are qualifiers for the FIH Junior World Cup, are the basis for the development of future national teams among the PAHF member countries.
“Through these tournaments, we can see how the national teams are growing and improving. The PAHF, along with host nations, Canada and Trinidad & Tobago, will be doing its utmost to ensure these events are a huge success.”
In the whole scheme of international hockey events, the Junior Pan Am Championships are a relatively new phenomenon but, as you can see by taking a look at tournaments of the past as well as the forthcoming events, these Championships are viewed as serious markers for the state of the nation’s hockey teams and can be reliable predictors for how the senior team may fare in future years, as well as how individual players can perform under pressure.
The Junior Pan American Championships started in 1978 for the men, with the women’s event commencing 10 years later. The Championships take place every four years, with qualification for the Junior World Cup the ultimate prize. In that time, it has been an almost total Argentinian domination. The men have won every edition of the tournament, the women have been beaten only once, by the USA.
Argentina’s dominance of the Pan American competition doesn’t translate so readily onto the subsequent Junior World Cup competitions; since 1979 when the first men’s Junior World Cup was held, Argentina has won the competition only once, in 2005, after picking up silver in 2001. The men’s competition at junior world level has been dominated by Germany, who has won six of the last 10 editions.
The Argentina women’s team has enjoyed more success, they have also only won the Junior World Cup once, in 1993, but they also won silver on three occasions, in 2001, 2009 and at the last edition in 2013.
For this year’s events, excitement and anticipation surrounding the sport generally will create an intense atmosphere. With Argentina’s senior men and women, the USA women, Canada’s men and the Brazilian men’s team all competing at the Rio Olympics, excitement and interest in hockey across the continent will be high. This will be reflected in these Junior Pan Am Championships, particularly as some of those young stars may well be playing on the most prestigious stage of all just a few weeks later and hockey fans will be eager to see the players in action.
Nine women’s teams and eight men’s teams will be competing at this year’s Junior Pan Am Championships. The figure is slightly down on the previous edition as 13 men’s teams lined up to do battle in 2012, but even with Guatemala, Brazil, Venezuela, Jamaica and Uruguay missing from the competition, there is bound to be an intensity to the matches as the teams battle to qualify for the Junior World Cup.
Some familiar names emerged from the previous edition of this competition, which was held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2012. For the men, it was the “Gonzo show”, as Gonzalo Peillat of Argentina was crowned top scorer and also named as player of the tournament. His counterpart for the women was Florencia Habif, who was player of the tournament, with Manuela Urroz of Chile taking the top goal-scorer award. All three players, plus several of their peers are now in their senior sides.
For all the teams, the Pan Am Championships are clearly a nurturing ground for talent. Take the current Canadian men’s and women’s teams. From the 2012 event in Guadalajara, nine of the players are now regulars in the men’s senior squad and recently competed in the Pan Am Games and Hockey World League Final (Matthew Sarmento, Keegan Pereira, Brenden Bissett, Adam Froese, James Kirkpatrick, Paul Wharton, Gabrial Ho-Garcia, Gordon Johnston and Taylor Curran, with both Froese and Ho-Garcia named to the 2015 Pan Am Elite Team). Among the Canadian women’s team, seven members of the 2012 Junior squad are now regulars on the women’s senior squad (Karli Johansen, Hannah Haughn, Abigail Raye, Sara McManus, Holly Stewart, Maddie Secco and Nathalie Sourisseau, with Haughn, Johansen and Raye striking PAHF Elite honors).
The importance of the Junior Pan Am Championships for future individual success within the international team is something that will be discussed further in a later article, but as chief executive of the International Hockey Federation, Kelly Fairweather points out, it is not just the success of the individual that is at stake, it is the very future of the sport: “These events provide the platform which feeds our senior national teams and are therefore key in achieving our ambition to make hockey a global game that inspires the next generation."
So let’s take a quick look back at some of the previous Junior Pan Am Championships, starting with the men’s competition. While the gold medal has gone to Argentina on every occasion, the runner-up spot has been more varied. Chile has always performed well at these games and has taken the silver medal in the men’s event on four occasions. The Chile team has also finished in third place three times. The very first edition, held in Mexico City back in 1978, was a match between Argentina and Chile – a match that signaled the first of Argentina’s unbeaten run.
Canada has appeared in three finals, most notably in the last edition of the event in 2012, when the North American side pushed Argentina all the way in a tense 3-2 match. Goals from Gordon Johnston and James Kirkpatrick gave the Canadian side hope, but goals from Joaquin Menini, Joaquin Coelho and Peillat were enough to seal the Argentinian victory.
The other side to appear in the final on three occasion is Cuba, although the last time they did so was 1996 and the team seems to have lost its way since then, finishing out of the top four spot ever since. One team that has teetered on the edge of the medals has been the USA men’s team. They took bronze in 2008, after beating Canada on a penalty shoot-out. Until that year, the USA side had been perennial fourth place finishers.
The women’s event began in 1988 with a match between Argentina and the USA. It is a fixture that has been repeated on two more occasions, with Argentina emerging victorious both times – by a 5-0 and 3-1 margin. Despite this, the USA is the only other team to lift the trophy. They did so in 2008 when they beat Chile 2-1 after extra time. Argentina had to settle for bronze on that occasion.
Canada has also taken silver twice, losing out to Argentina by a 7-1 scoreline back in 1997 but then nearly causing an upset when they took them to a tense 2-1 scoreline in the 2012 edition. Two goals from Julia Gomes – now a key part of the senior Las Leonas team – was enough to break Canadian hearts in that final. Karli Johansen was the Canadian goal scorer.
The players, coaches and team staff are now in the final stages of preparation for these tournaments. In what is a huge year for hockey, the Junior Pan Am Championships is perhaps one of the most important events for hockey in the Pan Am region because it provides a signpost for the future of the sport. Who will emerge as heroes, who will make their mark on the game? When the players line-up for the matches in Tacarigua or Toronto, all thoughts of their future will be far from their minds, but how they perform on that platform could be crucial for both their own international careers and the future of hockey in their country.
Continuing his ringing endorsement for the Junior Pan Am Championships, Fairweather, says: "Junior hockey plays a hugely important role in the development of our sport. It's a major stepping stone for young athletes as they move up from playing at a national level to the international stage. It is here that their development really progresses as they learn both on and off the pitch. From dealing with life on the road to learning from all of the different playing styles and tactics used by their opponents, tournaments such as the Pan American Nations Junior Championships are incredibly beneficial to our young athletes.”
FIH President Leandro Negre added: "The Pan American Junior Championships are always a fantastic platform for the up and coming athletes from across the continent to showcase their talent. As a result there is always a huge amount of action and excitement, which will be even more evident this year as the teams battle for a place in the 2016 Junior Hockey World Cups being held in Chile and India. It is always very inspiring to watch young talent break through and perform well in competitions like this, as we witness rising stars emerge and new heroes born."
