This evening at 7 p.m., the U.S. women’s national field hockey team will take part in an eight-team tournament called the FIH Nations Cup.
It’s a qualifying tournament which will see only the victor promoted to the top-level FIH Pro League, which gives participating sides greater exposure and the ability to earn FIH world rankings points.
Actually, it’s not necessarily that cut-and-dried when it comes to the promotion/relegation aspect of this tournament. USA Field Hockey’s press releases leading up to this competition have always had a version on this sentence when describing the Nations Cup:
…..giving the winning team the option to be promoted to the FIH Hockey Pro League the next season….
Let me point you to the word “option” in the quote. This is not a classic promotion/relegation situation where the last-place team in an upper competition is required to change places with the highest-ranked team in a lower competition.
We’ve seen situations where a pro/rel scenario has been waylaid, mostly because of financial contraints. We’ve seen this in Scotland, when a team winning the second division championship were denied promotion to the Scottish Premier League, which prevented the relegation of the last-place team that year.
In England, Macclesfield Town had the Conference League in 1993. The Conference League, at the time, was the fifth-level competition which would have brought promotion to The Football League, the four-level professional pyramid which includes the world-famous Premier League. However, Macclesfield were denied entry because the team’s home stadium did not meet Football League standards.
And a few years ago in field hockey, the United States women finished last in the FIH Pro League, but avoided the drop when New Zealand’s men and women opted out of the Pro League, allowing the U.S. to remain in the PL for the 2023-2024 season.
Now, I think there are several why the United States chose a team without roughly half its recent Olympians on the roster. One, of course, is that the team is choosing the team that is in the best form right now, as opposed to last summer. You look at the 19-player roster, and you see Jenny Rizzo, who was one of only two Americans in the Women’s Hockey India League, as well as teen sensation Reese D’Ariano, who recently took Young Player of the Tournament in the FIH Indoor World Cup.
But I also think the U.S. is demonstrating something called a “flex.” If the U.S. is able to win this eight-nations tournament without its starting goalkeeper, a Honda Award winner, and the Olympic captain, it would be an extremely strong statement about the depth of the U.S. team. It is a team balancing youth, speed, and experience.
The American side has a reasonably easy group, with Canada, Chile, and Japan comprising Pool A. The greater threats are in Pool B, with Korea, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand. I think the New Zealand Black Sticks will be the greatest rival in this championship, though, as we’ve seen, any dip in form by the U.S. will be duly dealt with by the opposition.
Should be an interesting week.