A new and exciting competition is set to light up the Hockey New England fields on a Tuesday evening.
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The best players from the region will face off in a four-team, nine-round, plus finals, tournament beginning on Tuesday night.
Captains for the four teams were chosen and then names were put forward for a player draft.
Paul Marquardt and Hayley Lennon will captain the Red team, Sam Brown and Lily Neilson are the skippers of the White team, Nathan Czinner and Suzie Cosh will lead the Black team and Jake McCann and Jodie Ellis are at the helm of the Pink team.
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In total, there are 18 NSW-level or national-level players scattered across the four teams.
"My idea of the whole competition was to highlight the talent that Armidale has for hockey and really make it high calibre competition," Hockey New England president Lisa Whitty said.
Each team has probably got four or five state players in each of them...
- Lisa Whitty
Whitty said the tournament will be a showcase of the best talent in the northern part of the state.
"It will be high speed, high skill," she said.
"Nathan's team may be slightly stronger than the other three but on the day, they are all pretty even.
"Each team has probably got four or five state players in each of them, Nathan probably has a couple more."
The association has previously held a similar style Super 9s tournament with great success.
The matches will be played at 6.15pm and 7.30pm under the new lights at the main turf on the Hockey New England fields.
In other exciting news, Czinner is one step closer to a Kookaburras jersey after earning selection in the 2020 national junior men's hockey program. Czinner will attend a 10-day camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra as part of the program.