Junior league to stay an Under-19 event, say MHF

The Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) competitions committee have shot down a proposal to make this year’s Malaysian Junior Hockey League (MJHL) an Under-20 tournament instead of Under-19.

The committee, however, will recommend to the MHF Council, who will meet on Jan 19, to allow players from the national juniors team to feature in the MJHL, which will begin next month.

National juniors coach V. Muralidharan had proposed to the competitions committee to make the MJHL an Under-20 tournament so that he would have a bigger pool of players to select from for the Junior World Cup next year.

Those who are Under-20 this year, will be eligible to feature in the Junior World Cup, which Malaysia will co-host with Singapore.

The 32 national juniors were barred from featuring in the National Under-21 tournament, which ended today.

Competitions committee chairman Manjit Majid Abdullah said that the MJHL would remain as an Under-19 league.

“However, we will recommend to the council to allow the juniors to play in the MJHL,” said Manjit.

The closing date for the MJHL is Jan 17 while the council meeting will be on Jan 19.

Manjit said this would not be a problem as teams would be allowed to submit their players’ names a few days after the council’s meeting.

He also said that they would hold the Malaysia Hockey League (MHL) even if Malaysia qualified for the Beijing Olympics in August.

“If Malaysia qualify for the Olympics, the MHL will be held in September. If they fail to qualify, then we will hold the league in May,” said Manjit.

Malaysia will compete in the Olympic qualifiers in Japan from April 5-13. The other teams in the fray are world champions Germany, Poland and Switzerland. Only the champions will make it to the Olympics.