The President of the Malaysian Women’s Hockey Association, YM Raja Puan Sri Dato’ Noora Ashikin bte Raja Abdullah announced today two new important milestones for the Malaysian Women’s Hockey.
The first being the formation of the High Performance Development Division in the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (Women’s Hockey). In the effort to ensure that development is given its due importance especially that the new cycle of 2012 London Olympic Qualifiers, 17th Asian Games, Incheon, Korea (2014), Commonwealth Games, Glasgow, Scotland (2014) have begun.
The equal importance must indeed be placed on the preparation for the 2012 Continental Junior World Cup Qualifiers and the team for the Elite.
As such, the MHC (WH) have created a High Performance Division, which will be headed by Yahya Atan as Director. The entire national development program and the 1MAS program coordination will be managed by this Division.
The experience of Yahya is very much needed in ensuring that the many tiers of national teams are formed and are harnessed.
We are delighted that the 1MAS Task Force for the inclusion of the 1MAS program for the women.
We particularly thanked the President of MHF, DYTM Tengku Mahkota Pahang and the Director General of NSC , YBhg Dato’ Zolkples for their support. This will indeed be a new era for the development of women’s hockey especially at the states. The President presented to the 1MAS Task Force today morning at 11am at the NSC. The program is scheduled to take-off in the first week of April 2011. The program will be under the responsibility of the High Performance Development Division Director, Yahya Atan.
Yahya's assistant Nasihin Nubli will be made as the Chief Coach for the National Women’s Team preparing for the Champions Challenge 2, which will be held from 7/15 May 2011. He will be assisted by Ernawati Mahmud.
The Association is in the midst of having discussions with the National Sports Council and the Ministry of Education to make the Bandar Penawar Sports School the centre for the National High Performance Development Centre. The meetings are scheduled to be held in midst March 2011.
The President emphasized on the importance of the performance of the team at the Champions Challenge 2 and is confident of the team performing well. The target for the team indeed is to become among the semi-finalist. Although of the eight (8 teams), Malaysia is ranked sixth (6th), the MHC (Women’s Hockey) is confident the girls will rise to the occasion and perform well.
The team has started full-time training at the moment from the second week of February 2011. The preparation for the participation in the Champions Challenge 2 include 3 matches against Japan’s top club team (the Sony Japan team) on 19,20 and 21 March 2011 , which will be followed by a tour of Australia.
Participating Teams
| Pool A | | Pool B | |
| Chile | (16 – 803 points) | Belgium | (17 – 733 points) |
| Canada | (19 – 709 points) | Russia | (18 – 731 points) |
| Italy | (20 – 705 points) | Malaysia | (22 – 540 points) |
| Austria | (37 – 155 points) | Belarus | (23 – 523 points) |
Previous Records:
Chile: we lost 1-0 in the World Cup Qualifiers, 2010 in Santiago, Chile
Canada : we won 3-2 in the New Delhi, Commonwealth Games
Russia – we won 2-1 in the last Champions Challenge 2 in Kazan , 2009
Italy – we drew 0-0 in the Olympic Qualifiers in Victoria Canada 2008
