Ghana to Celebrate Hockey World Youth Challenge 2008

Ghana Hockey will join the rest of the Global Hockey Family to celebrate the centenary of the introduction of hockey as an Olympic Sport with activities that will focus on the youth.

This year’s Youth Challenge (formerly known as “Global Youth Hockey Marathon”) will be the first event in a series to celebrate 100 years of hockey in the Olympics. The event, which has as central theme 'Live the Dream', will take place on the 17-18 May 2008 in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Central and Volta Regions.

The GHA expects that each Regional Association will make it a dream event for their young players, as separate events or as an “add-on” event possibly alongside the regular leagues and activities.

Likely generic activities to be carried out by the Regional Associations will include the ‘dream hoops’, dream pentathlon’, and ‘dream skills’. The dream hoops event will introduce the youth to the Olympic Games and will utilise the Hoops (Olympic Rings) in a pushing/flicking activity so that individuals learn about the colours and arrangement of the rings. The target group is expected to be those in the 6-12 and 13-19 years age brackets for both sexes and this event is expected to be completed with a fun-filled competition.

The dream pentathlon event will aim at getting the youth in the age group 9-19 years of both sexes to run an event that involves 5 hockey skill activities using rings, cones, skittles and other equipment. Activities will include time-bound and competitive juggling, dribbling and flicking using the rings and the other equipment.

The dream skill is expected to be even more exciting as the youth will seek to unleash their hockey skills on their colleagues. The aim of the event will be to simulate the youth in the age group bracket of 9-19 years to practice the skills of their hockey heroes. The activities will include stick bounce competitions, figure 8 manoeuvres, ball balance, target scooping and more.

As has been the case with the eight (8) previous Youth Marathons, prizes will be awarded to countries that plan and implement an exciting and cohesive programme. Five (5) prize winning countries of this year’s Youth Challenge will receive a visit of an Olympic Hockey Hero. These athletes will visit the lucky National Associations for 2-3 days and will conduct coaching clinics, show the newest tricks from Beijing and talk about the Road to the Olympics. A jury consisting of members of the FIH DCC and FIH Youth Panel will select one country per continent that have organized the most exciting “Live the Dream” event showing a clear link with “100 years of hockey in the Olympics”.

Ghana has been adjudged an award winner on three (3) occasions with the last one in the year 2007 when a series of activities included the fascinating ‘hockey on the beach’ which caught the attention of the jury. It is expected that all Regional Associations will document their programmes utilizing photographs, videos, media clips among others to depict the events of the two days.