The future of field hockey in Bermuda looks to be in good hands with more than 700 youngsters taking part in the sport on a regular basis.

Building the sport up through the grassroots has been a major focus of past and present administrations and new Bermuda Hockey Federation president Justin Freisenbruch is keen to add to the success.

Hockey is on the curriculum at five Island schools, there is a mixed league for seven to 11-year-olds with 55 players and a 12-14 year-old league was formed in September with 80 youngsters expected to take part by its end in April.

Sponsors are in place for different aspects of both Schools Leagues and the BHF Youth Leagues, while the women's Under-16s, 18s and 21 programmes have been in place for more than 15 years.

Finally, the men's league has, for three years, featured the Bermuda Combined Schools team with boys aged 13 and up from six schools competing on equal footing with the seniors.

"We have developed various youth programmes at various levels," said Freisenbruch. "That essentially means that youngsters coming into the game will have various stages of leads and progression to take them all the way through from when they first start to the senior domestic competition. That ultimately leads to national representation.

"Fortunately, we have two sponsors who have come on board in the XL Foundation and JLT Risk Solutions Bermuda who have kindly donated some money to us so we can utilise facilities and the like for the youth programme."

Freisenbruch said the youth programme on the women's side had been going for many years.

"It was all started a long time ago by Dai Herman-Smith and Kath Davis and they are still involved with it now, which is great. There has been tremendous continuity all the way through the development of the youth programme," he said.

"At the moment it is spearheaded by the vice president of the federation, Liz Osborne."

The boys' programme was "a work in progress" said Freisenbruch.

"We have the blueprint with what has been done with the girls," he said. "The youth programme for the young boys is now following the same sort of pattern as with the women's side. Of the 700 participants, probably a quarter are boys, 75 percent girls, 25 percent boys. But again that is a growing number. Five years ago there was basically no youth programme in place for the men."

Freisenbruch said the world over field hockey was more popular with girls than boys, but the BHF were working on that.

"It's very important for the boys to see where they can get with the sport," he said. "That, again, has been something of a challenge because, similar to cricket, the men's national team, which was a regular touring side, has not done so for two or three years.

"That is something that is going to be rectified this year. A men's representative team will be going away in 2004."

The president said the formation of the Bermuda Combined Schools Panthers had greatly helped their cause.

"They have been part of the men's league for three years and are playing and competing very well with the men," he said. "They have reached the final of the Knockout Cup for the last two years, beating all manner of men's teams.

"It's a great credit to the kids that they have been in that programme and are now competing really on an equal footing with the men. The development of some of them has been amazing. Some, who have been in the programme since it started, are now among the more dominant players in the league."

Freisenbruch said there was a need to ensure the development was continued in years to come.

"The youth programme has to keep feeding itself," he said, "so we have a steady stream of youngsters coming through the various levels up into the senior echelons of sport."