Schedule, how to watch, storylines and more in advance of the Oman qualifier
The stage is set in Muscat, Oman, for a thrilling Olympic qualifying event, as eight top ranked teams face off for three Olympic berths. The Canadian Red Caribou are coming off a Pan American silver medal and will be looking to punch their ticket to Paris.
The Men’s National Team qualified for the 2016 Games and the 2020 Games via the FIH Olympic Qualifiers. In 2015, it was a dramatic shootout victory over New Zealand that sealed the deal, and in 2019, the incredible come back and shootout win over Ireland at home in West Vancouver.
Canada ( world ranked 17) sits third ranked in a pool with Germany (5), Chile (22) and New Zealand (11). Across the bracket, in pool A, China, Great Britain, Malaysia and Pakistan will do battle. The top two teams from each pool advance to semis and retain the chance to finish top three. It will be an all-out battle for the coveted three Olympic bids.
How to Follow
FIH Watch Hockey is the Canadian broadcaster of the Olympic Qualifiers. Go to the app or to the browser site to get the pay per view package for the men’s and women’s tournaments.
Field Hockey Canada will be tweeting match scores and posting all results/images and videos on social media.
Tournament schedule, match scores and recaps will be posted daily on our home page and our event pages.
Visit the tournament page for further updates on the event including pool standings, event results, links to videos and box scores.
TOURNAMENT MILESTONES
West Vancouver’s Fin Boothroyd will be earning his 50th international cap in the first crossover match after pool play. Long-time stalwart Matt Sarmento, from Vancouver, will be making his 150th international appearance for the Red Caribou in the first game of the tournament when Canada takes on Germany.
STORY NUGGETS:
Drama-Fueled group stage: You don’t have to look far for the story lines in Pool B. Canada lost to Chile in a thrilling shootout in the Pan American Games semifinals in Santiago. Canada will be looking for revenge in that match. Germany, a top team in the world, is coached by Andre Henning, former Canadian national team coach, from the 2021 Tokyo Games. As mentioned, Canada knocked out New Zealand from contention in 2015, so there’s a rich history against the Blacksticks.
Rich and experienced leadership core: The average cap count for the Men’s National Team at this event is 87 and the average age is 27. This team is on the younger and more inexperienced side overall but a leadership core of Gordon Johnston, Taylor Curran, Keegan Pereira all have 200+ caps each and a support staff of Brenden Bissett and Matt Sarmento are over 150. These five athletes represented Canada at the previous two Olympic Games.
The Next Generation: Several of the Canadian men have recently graduated from Junior Hockey into the senior game. Six athletes have fewer than 25 senior international caps, including both goalkeepers, and defenders Manveer Jhamat and Sam Cabral. It’s not a super-young team, but it’s a squad that has been integrating youth over the past two seasons and will look for a jump from that cohort.
Olympic Experience: At the end of the day, the big games matter. Those Pan American, Commonwealth and Olympic Games matches add up. This team returns nine players from their 2021 Tokyo Olympic roster. You know all 18 are hungry to get to the games!
Program builders at the helm: Head Coach Patrick Tshutshani and Assistant Coach, Geoff Matthews, have a good sense of their player pool. Matthews has been with the men’s junior program for a decade and is the head coach of the Junior National team, who recently returned home from the Junior World Cup. Between the two of them, their touch points with the wider men’s squad is consistent. As a result there’s a strong junior—senior pathway at work, which means we can expect growth and continuity in the coming Olympic and World Cup cycles.
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