A trio of Kelowna products will compete for Canada later this month at an international field hockey tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico.
National team veterans Abigail Raye, Dani Hennig and Natalie Sourisseau will suit up with the Canadian women’s squad Sept. 11 to 14 at Hockey World League 1.
World League is a multi-round, multi-nation tournament which in the end serves as a Rio 2016 Olympic qualifier.
“This upcoming World League 1 is the most important event for our program in 2014 due to the very nature at what is at stake,” says Women’s National Team head coach Ian Rutledge.
Raye has 112 caps with the Canadian women’s team, Hennig, who is a vice-captain, has 76, while Sourisseau has 55.
All three players are graduates of the KSS field hockey program.
In addition to the five continental qualifiers for the Olympic Games (one of which will be the winner of the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games), two teams will also qualify through the World League competition, bringing the total to seven teams.
Olympic qualification happens after the third round of World League, but only the winner of World League 1 advances to the second round.
Canada will be competing against Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru in the first round of World League in Mexico in September.
“The team is well prepared, given that we have just come of the Commonwealth Games and the after glow of a very intense preparation period,” adds Rutledge. “We have spent the past two weeks honing technical aspects of our game and I am looking forward to spending the first week of our tour to Mexico in a training camp like environment, refining our off-field environment as well as our on-field play.”
