Twelve teams have been selected to participate in the Mayor’s Challenge Trophy Hockey Tournament to be held from April 1 to 4 at the Astro turf in Colombo. This tournament is conducted for the first time by the Colombo Municipal Council and is offering cash prizes to the winners.
The dozen teams will be divided into four groups and will be played on a league basis. The two teams that finish on top of each group will play in the quarter-finals. The winners will play in the semi-finals.
The champion team will receive a cash prize of Rs. 100,000, the runners-up Rs. 50,000 and the third placed team Rs. 30,000.
The teams in their respective groups are as follows:
Group A: Old DSS Sports Club, Mastaris SC Matale and BRC
Group B: Kandy HA, Air Force SC and Army SC
Group C: Old Royal SC, Old Nalandians SC and Navy SC
Group D: CH & FC, CMC and Police SC.
Though the Forces teams were leading in hockey they selected the club teams that have performed well during the local tournaments.
These details were revealed at the media briefing held at the BRC auditorium on Thursday (18).
The Opening Ceremony will be held at 7 a.m. on April 1 and the first match will begin at 8 a.m. Six matches will be played on the first two days. The quarter-finals will be played on April 3, the semi-finals and final at 3.30 p.m. on April 4.
The tournament is sponsored by My Cola Bewerages who have agreed to sponsor this event for five years and MAF Cargo.
Roshanie Dissanayake the Commissioner of CMC said that they will continue to conduct sports tournaments in the years ahead. She said that they will select sports persons into their Council as they have all facilities to help enhance their skills further. They are also taking steps to improve hockey in the country and will conduct an all island hockey tournament in the near future.
Dissanayake also added that they hope to conduct similar tournaments in athletics, football and 16 other sports in the future as Sri Lanka is full of sports loving people.
Most sports have their own venues and the CMC hope to build a stadium for hockey from one of the 29 venues they have in Colombo.