County Hockey continues to offer an important development experience within the new talent system.
What is County (Sub Area) Hockey?
- Junior County (Sub Area) Hockey is the new name for junior county hockey programmes previously known as Development Centres (DC) and Academy Centres (AC)
- Junior County (Sub Area) Hockey will continue to provide an exciting and aspirational representative opportunity for the U12-U17 age groups that provides a different experience to regular club or school hockey.
- It isa standalone development experience, focused on preparing for and competing in representative teams.
- It is one route to progress to the next stage of the talent system and counties can nominate players for Talent Academy and/or England Age Group trials.
- For some players County (Sub Area) Hockey will be one of several talent foundation opportunities they take up and it is regarded as steppingstone towards both elite domestic and international performance hockey. For others it will be the pinnacle of their representative hockey and hopefully a steppingstone to life-long enjoyment and involvement in the sport. Both these outcomes are worthy aims and valuable to the long-term development of hockey.
- There is a huge opportunity for counties to access a wider group of young people by targeting more players who are unable to access regular high- quality hockey elsewhere and contribute to developing a more diverse talent pool.
- Junior County (Sub Area) Hockey also has an important role in providing development opportunities for players, coaches, administrators and umpires from different backgrounds.
