National Teams for 2008 Olympic Games Hockey Qualifier
The Ghana Hockey Association has released the names of the men and women who will represent the country at the 2008 Olympic Games Qualifier to be staged in Nairobi, Kenya in July 2007. The teams as presented by the coaching staff were announced by the Executive of the Association this morning at the National Hockey Pitch.

Significantly, there were new entrants in both the men’s and women’s teams. In the women’s category, there were 5 new faces with 3 drawn from the junior team. In the case of the men, 8, including 3 juniors and one from the Ashanti Regional League were handed their first opportunities to play for the senior national team at international level.

The teams are scheduled to travel to the Netherlands on a training tour courtesy the Government of Ghana and through the facilitation of the International Hockey Federation/World Hockey ahead of the Nairobi event. The Olympic Qualifier is indeed the version of the Hockey event at the All Africa Games to be held in Algiers during the same period, and have been arranged as such because the host of the Games did not make infrastructural provisions for hosting of the sport. As has been the tradition, the All African Games serves as the qualifier for various events including hockey for the Olympic Games and as such, the hockey competition had to be re-located to another venue to guarantee the African qualification for the Beijing fiesta.

In a short message before the names were announced, the Chairman congratulated the players and their handlers for the hard work they put in during the long period of preparations and especially, the sacrifices they had to make in view of the GHA’s inability to meet most of their resource requirements due to the Association’s own resource challenges. He expressed the confidence that the challenges would inspire them to produce the desired results to crown their efforts and to consolidate the position of hockey as an important sporting discipline in the country. He admonished them to be good ambassadors of the country especially at a time that Ghana was held in high esteem in the World as a show of gratitude to the Government for the support to the sport. Ghana Women are currently ranked 2nd in Africa and 22nd in the World while the men are ranked 3rd in Africa and 36th in the World.

The team is expected to fly out to the Netherlands on Saturday June 23 where the men will participate in a 4-Nation tournament featuring Portugal (ranked 47), Trinidad and Tobago (ranked 23) and the Junior side of the Netherlands (seniors ranked 4). The women will be involved in a series of training matches arranged with the assistance of the Netherlands Hockey Federation (KNHB) and World Hockey through Mr. Theo Ykema. As part of the arrangements, both teams will also be assisted by specialist coaches from the Netherlands who will complement the efforts of the Ghanaian coaches in the final stages of the preparations. The teams will also be accompanied by a physiotherapist and a World Hockey Umpire.

The teams are as follows: Men: Aikins Opoku Danso (Bank of Ghana), Emmanuel Arkorful (CEPS), William Cudjoe (Ghana Commercial Bank-GCB), Benedict Sam (SSNIT), Richard Doe (GCB), Charles Moses (CEPS), Lawrence Nartey (CEPS), Paanii Sowah (GCB), Isaac Ofori (GCB), Gabriel Denyo (GCB), Elikem Akaba (GCB), Ebenezer Frimpong (CEPS), Isaac Moses (CEPS), Peter Obeng (Royals, Kumasi), Salya Nsalbini (Ghana Army), George Asiedu (Ghana Army), Daniel Lamptey (GCB), Joseph Appiah (GCB), Emmanuel Nartey (SSNIT) and Michael Nartey (GCB).

Women: Josephine Edusei (Fire Service), Pamela Condobery (Prisons), Rejoice Noi, (Police), Erica Ametepe (Fire), Olivia Lartey (CEPS), Georgina Sam (Prisons), Mirabel Lamptey (Fire) Beatrice Darko (Fire), Grace Marmon-Halm (CEPS), Emelia Aggrey (Fire), Ramatu Abass (Fire), Cecilia Ofoe (Police), Gertrude Inkoom (CEPS), Evelyn Ameyibor (CEPS), Gertrude Amui (Ghana Army), Gloria Gyimah (Prisons), Rejoice Awagah (Fire), Mavis Akrong (Ghana Army), Esther Parry (Priso