Canada: Men’s National Team – FIH Nations Cup

Canada builds off Azlan Shah, heading to Poland for Nations Cup

Field Hockey Canada is thrilled to announce the Men’s National Team roster that will represent Canada at the 2024 FIH Nations Cup in Gniezno, Poland. This is the second iteration of the FIH Nations Cup, with the first one happening in South Africa in 2022. Canada will attend for the second consecutive time. 

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The Canadian Men’s National Team is fresh off a tour to Ipoh, Malaysia for the 30th Annual Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. The team had six new caps make their appearance at that event as Head Coach Patrick Tshutshani begins the process of building depth and strength in his squad for the upcoming World Cup and Olympic cycle. Although the team failed to register a win at the tournament in Malaysia, they showed positive signs of growth and learning to deliver close and exciting games including some stand out goals by youngsters Sean Davis and Harbir Sidhu. 

Canada opens the tournament with a match on May 31 against France and is in a group with Pakistan and Malaysia as well. The top two teams from each group advance to the semifinals. The bottom teams play for vital world ranking points in the placement bracket. The tournament finishes with the gold medal match on June 9. 

Head Coach Patrick Tshutshani said that he is proud at how the team developed at Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, showing team and personal growth in all the matches. He knows that there is a learning and development curve to push through during this period.

“The Sultan Azlan Shah is a great tournament that provides great competition and this was an ideal opportunity for the new look team to compete and gain valuable experience. The team competed in phases, it is clear for us that we want to be able to put up 60 minute performances from a consistency point of view,” Tshutshani said. “We have the ability to score field goals and this showed at the tournament so I am pleased with this progress and we want to continue to evolve. Defensively we will need to clean up and have the tenacity to manage phases when we don’t have the ball.”

In Poland, the learning will continue. There will be another four players playing their first senior international caps — Maan Sidhu, Hudson Loh, Imannjit Sahota, and Leighton De Souza. Sidhu, Loh and De Souza all played on the Canadian Junior National Team and De Souza represented Canada at the recent Indoor Pan American Cup in Calgary.  

Avjot Buttar, Flynn McCulloch and Jude Nicholson, who made their national team debuts in Malaysia last month, will hold their positions for Nations Cup. Tshutshani said that it is important that the Mens National Program is aligned with Junior system to ensure that there is a pathway. The Men’s National Team is currently building the team and depth pool. The experience at these competitions is critical for the group as they build a team identity with this new cohort.

Tshutshani said he expects a full step up from their performance in Malaysia, knowing they can take their learnings from that tournament and turn them into quality performances.  

“Nations Cup provides another opportunity to play top international hockey, for us this could not have come at a better time, with the team going through a rebuilding phase. At Nations Cup we get to play teams ranked between nine and 20 in the World,” he said. “Teams such as France, New Zealand and South Africa who are on route to Paris Olympic 2024 will be fine tuning their details that they require to be at their best at the Olympics. This will pose great challenges for us and we look forward to the challenge. We will strive for more consistency in our play, consistency in our principles of play and consistency in our behaviours we are looking to piece all these together. By doing this, it will put is in a good position to grow and compete.”

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