Skills & Coaching
Gulf, Cape kids stick up for chance to compete
ANYONE looking for a game at the Karumba Recreation Golf Club today had better bring a stick of a different kind. The course at the small town, near Normanton, has been given over to young remote community hockey players with the inaugural Gulf Versus Cape Challenge series to be battled out today and tomorrow.
The Cape/Torres squad which visited Cairns for a development camp in May will line up against its Gulf counterparts in an a three-match series which is planned to become a yearly event.
Hockey Queensland indigenous and remote program manager Julie McNeil said the series aimed to provide regular competition for children from remote communities and to provide them with valuable life skills.
“Regular competition for young people is difficult in these remote communities because of distance, lack of facility development, equipment and the communities are quite small so population and human resources are significant issues,” she said.
“ This means that the life lessons many people get exposed to early through participation in competition, these young people don’t have easy access to.
“ This is why regional competitions of this sort are very important.”
McNeil hoped Courtney Durham, a Thursday Island girl who is representing Cairns at the state under-13 women’s championships in Warwick this week, will be joined by other Cape/Torres program participants in Cairns teams in the near future.
Article in the Cairns Post Sport - July 3rd 2009
