Mark Mello, president of Bermuda Hockey Federation, believes the decision to enter the Pan Am Cup was right and has only been of benefit to the sport on the Island.

After conceding 49 goals and failing to score, there were questions asked about Bermuda's participation in the event and whether it had done more harm than good.

However, Mello has insisted that it was the right thing to do and sees the bump in the team's world ranking from 65 to 43 as justification.

"The tournament itself, the Pan Am Cup, was going to happen anywhere in the region, whether it was in Bermuda or not," said Mello.

"By virtue of being host, yes we recieve an automatic spot. However, the tournament's open to anyone to apply to enter. So if it had been held anywhere else in the world Bermuda had the right to enter.

"It was set up to be a 12-team tournament, so if we were one of the top 12 ranked teams in the region we would have been there anyway. So it's not necessarily true that the only reason we entered the tournament was because we hosted it."

In the end, only eight teams took part, with four others, including Barbados having to pull out because of the current economic crisis.

"Should we have entered, yes," said Mello. "And the reason is this; not entering badly effects your ranking points, Barbados who pulled out have badly hurt their ranking. By us entering we have jumped 22 places to 43rd, and by virtue of doing that, the next time we want to enter a tournament three or four years from now, we keep those points and that allows us to avoid some of the tougher pools.

"So there is some benefit by virtue of entering that we do get. We can avoid play-off matches, so if there is another 12-team tournament, and 13 teams apply, maybe now we're not number 12 or 13, we're number 11 and so we don't have to go to a qualifying tournament. So just by competing we have improved our ranking.

"Then on top of that, we have a new manager, and the coaches, I think the experience that they have gained, hopefully they will have learnt a lot of lessons from that as well.

"In terms of negatives, I'm not sure there are a lot of them. The majority of the players were older, we only had five players under the age of 20 in that tournament. Most of them didn't get on to the pitch for a long time, so I don't think we necessarily turned them off as a result of that experience.

"I don't think there were a whole bunch of negatives by entering."