By JUILET MAKASA –

HOCKEY national team coach Thomas Mumba says he will use the Teulings Youth Sports Challenge to identify players for the Under 12 team.
Mumba said he is impressed with the amount of talent the sports challenge has so far identified.
He said most countries do not have the privilege of having young hockey players practicing the sport.
“The Teulings Youth Sports Challenge will be a great way of identifying players we can use for the Under 12 national team, it will be a good way of taping talent from grassroots, it is very impressive to see young athletes performing so well this is very rare in most countries,” he said.
Mumba described the Teulings Youth Sports Challenge as a tool for both skill and athlete development and that it has helped athletes reduce on the abuse of drugs and alcohol.
“As you might be aware hockey is a new sport compared to these other sports, the Teulings Youth Sports Challenge has not only helped in developing athletes, but also all the people on the technical side that are involved as we have these games, it gives them more knowledge about the game and how it should be handled,” he said.
The coach also said Teulings will also be used to identify high performance athletes that will make the senior national team to be used for various assignments.
“Our interest as Zambia Hockey Association is to identify high performance athletes from such challenges, this is one of the rare opportunities for hockey players to practice as well as show case their talent that will in turn enable them to be picked in the national team,” he said.
OYDC last weekend hosted the third games this year with eighteen teams participating, among the teams that participated were Black Sharks, Young Sharks Shakiya, Black Stars, Genesis, Olympafrica, Young Tigers, Shinning Stars, Green Boys, SOS and Black Stars.
The next games are scheduled to be held for next month at OYDC.