New Delhi: In a bid to make use of the lockdown period to good effect, Hockey India (HI) and Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Saturday (April 18) announced the introduction of the 21-day Coaches Development Sessions (CDS), as part of SAI’s MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) workshop for coaches, which was launched by SAI on April 16.

These online education sessions will be aimed at providing high level knowledge to hockey coaches around the country through video conferencing. Since these coaches are present at various levels, the CDS will be classified into two coaching sessions - Level 'Basic' coaching sessions and Level 'Intermediate' coaching sessions, and will be conducted by HI's foreign national team coaches, scientific advisors and director, high performance.

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 The Level 'Basic' coaching sessions will be conducted by Erik Wonink (coach, Indian junior women’s hockey team), and will feature candidates who are non SAI-accredited hockey coaches. These coaches have been given the opportunity to get enrolled for the Sessions regardless of their qualification, and will be registered by HI on the HI online academy platform. The Level 'Basic' coaching sessions will be held from Monday to Friday between 9 am and 10 am IST.

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The Level 'Intermediate' coaching sessions will be conducted by Graham Reid (chief coach, Indian men's hockey team), Sjoerd Marijne (chief coach, Indian women's hockey team), Chris Ciriello (analytical coach, Indian men's hockey team), Janneke Schopman (analytical coach, Indian women's hockey team), Robin Arkell (scientific advisor, Indian men's hockey team) and Wayne Lombard (scientific advisor, Indian women's hockey team). The candidates for these sessions will include SAI-accredited coaches who have successfully passed the HI Level '1' certification (or above). The Level 'Intermediate' coaching sessions will be held from Monday to Friday between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm IST.