next week on a nine-day tour designed to toughen them up for international competition.

The squad of 30 players aged between 13 and 18, together with four officials, will fly to Vancouver on Tuesday and return on the following Thursday.

They will be put through a rigorous daily schedule, comprising training from 8.00 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. and then two games most evenings.

For most of the players, it will be a first overseas tour and manager Sarah Cook said one of the chief benefits would be the opportunity to play on artificial pitches.

"They are building an artificial turf pitch at the National Stadium and that is the future of national hockey, so it is a good idea to get young girls training on that surface now,'' said Cook.

"The game is a lot faster than on grass. It's a flatter surface and it requires a lot more skill. It's the way the game is being played now.'' The youngsters have fixtures lined up against under-15 and under-17 sides from the Vancouver area and the tour is seen as preparation for next April's Pan-American Junior Games to be held in Barbados.

In 1997's corresponding event, Bermuda's young team finished seventh, above Mexico, Paraguay and Venezuela, and one survivor from that side, 18-year-old Megan Spurling is the most experienced of those going to Vancouver.

Three coaches, Kath Davis, Steve Moreton and Dafydd Hermann-Smith, who worked with the Bermuda senior team who registered their first ever victory at last year's CAC Games, will travel with the squad.

Parents of the players have paid for the tour, with the aid of two fund-raising events, a bingo evening and a 12-hour dribbling marathon which involved the players working in groups of six, dribbling the ball 200 yards at a time.

They dribbled a total of 153,000 yards at an impressive average speed of 7.24 miles per hour.