The future of hockey looks bright with five players under the age of 21 selected in Bermuda’s final squad of 18 for this month’s Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

First-choice goalkeeper Christina Stephens, Alyssa de Silva, Lauren Cardwell, Isabel Roe and 17-year old Leyla Ganal are the youngsters chosen by coach Kovin Moodley, with Ganal named as one of the two reserves with Elizabeth Stewart still to be capped at international level.

The final team, which leaves for the Dominican Republic on June 24 also has the vastly experienced quartet of Keishae Robinson, Stewart, Megan Troake and Lakae Tavares.

Stewart, at the age of 52 is the oldest player and has played for Bermuda at the CAC Games in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, Pan American Cup in 2009, Pan American Challenge in 2011 as well as last year’s CAC qualifiers.

De Silva, who is studying at Loughborough University in England, arrived in Bermuda last Saturday, while Maha Clarke and Lauren Cardwell will only join the squad in the Dominican Republic.

“We are into our final days now,” Moodley said, “Last week we had a couple of games against mixed teams who are part of the hockey federation. We were trying to correct some of the patterns we had picked up from the California games. The California games exposed holes in our play so we had these matches to correct that.

“I feel like we are more complete than we were at the qualifiers. Preparation has allowed us to add more elements to the game. We have more tactical systems, ability to adjust and we've had more time to build the high-performance model around the team.

“On Sunday, we played at midday trying to recreate some of the weather conditions we might experience in the Dominican Republic. Unfortunately, the weather in Bermuda has not allowed us to recreate that with all the rain, as its going to be very hot.”

No captain has been named so far, with the announcement to be made when the final team meeting takes place on June 20. Moodley is a believer in leadership responsibilities being shared.

“The leadership of the team is distributed among cultural architects,” he said. “My personal approach is to have a group of leaders with skills sets that we want to positively impact the group.”

Bermuda play their first match against Barbados on June 27 before taking on Dominican Republic two days later and conclude against Puerto Rico on July 1.

With eight teams in the competition, Moodley is targeting a top-four finish, The best achievement for Bermuda at the CAC Games in the past was fifth in 1990 and 1998.