Paul O'Brien, the driving force behind indoor hockey in the country, has stepped down as chairman of the Leinster indoor committee after 18 years involvement since joining the organisation as an enthusiastic 20-year-old.
He leaves with the state of the game in its strongest position for years with interest growing in Ulster and Connacht and the IHA setting up a specific indoor committee.
Speaking about the future of indoor, O'Brien is very optimistic that the trend can continue: "The feedback from players and spectators has been hugely positive and I remain encouraged that the game can re-establish itself in all the provinces – with just a little work from the IHA and regional branches.
"We have a model for a successful competition structure in place now and it should be capable of replication in the provinces by local competition organising committees."
He added "as you will have read in the tournament brochure and heard David Judge mention yesterday, this season marks the end of my tenure as Chairman of the LBIHA Indoor Committee.
He added "as you will have read in the tournament brochure and heard David Judge mention yesterday, this season marks the end of my tenure as Chairman of the LBIHA Indoor Committee.
"I have approached a number of individuals with a view to coming onto the Indoor Committee for 2009/2010 and will have a full handover meeting with the incoming committee to ensure the appropriate planning is there to organise next years tournament."
In that same brochure, O'Brien called on the current crop of players who showed their enjoyment of the game at the NBA last weekend to lend a hand with the promotion of the game and help improve the technical skills of our players and the enjoyment of spectators alike.
He leaves with provisional dates for next year's competition already in place with the NBA booked for January 22-24, 2010 and February 5-7, 2010.
5 comments:
A Huge Congratulations and Thank you to Paul O'Brien for all the hard work he has put into keeping indoor going over the last number of years. The last number of events have been hugely successful in the NBA and it is great to see more and more teams enter each year with the standard improving greatly year in year out.
A big thank you for all your work Paul, indoor is a great sport and the tournament in the NBA is looked forward to every year - even if it kills a few Saturday nights out!
is there a womens indoor league or will the committee look into setting that up??
As I think has been mentioned before in a previous comment chain, the indoor committee is willing to help organise a women's tournament/cup competition but needs the main Leinster branch to take the lead in getting the process up and running by sounding out interest and so forth.
Big thanks to Paul O'Brien for all his work towards the indoor over the years. He's a legend!
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