MEN'S HOCKEY:IT WAS interesting to see that of 16 top European hockey players picked to decorate the front of the European Hockey Federation's Christmas card, two were Irish. Ronan Gormley and Alex Speers posed alongside such players as Germany's Fanny Rinne and Spain's Santi Freixa.

Both Gormley and Speers will be trying to qualify Irish teams for next summer’s Olympic Games in London.

Ireland have been awarded the men’s Olympic qualifying event in March, which will take place in Belfield, while there are also several Irish included.

In the recent FIH announcement of officials for the Olympic Games next summer Colin Hutchinson has been selected as an umpire, as has Carol Metchette, while the entire Olympic men’s umpiring team will be managed by Ray O’Connor, a veteran of Olympic Games, World and European Championship finals.

The men’s national coach, Paul Revington, was also picked to coach the FIH All Star team of 2011, which features a total of 36 players and four coaches who have lit up the hockey world over the past 12 months with their achievements.

The squads, which were decided by public vote on the FIH website between December 12th-21st, featured a number of players who have been regularly named as the best in the world – players such as Australia’s Jamie Dwyer, the Netherlands’ Teun de Nooijer and Luciana Aymar from Argentina were all included.

What that all means is Irish hockey has achieved quite a decent profile at European level and with perhaps the biggest tournament ever to take place in Ireland on the St Patrick’s week, that profile is likely to increase over the next three months.

Ireland open the Olympic qualifying event at the National Hockey Stadium in UCD against Russia on March 10th, face Ukraine the next day and then have a rest day. The home side then meet Korea on the 13th, China on the 15th and Malaysia on St Patrick’s Day.

The final is scheduled for March 18th, with just the winning team going through to London.

All in all this year could turn out to be the most important season in Irish hockey history and while it is a huge ask for the men to win the tournament, it is not beyond their reach. Most are playing professionally in Europe, which has had a positive effect on the levels of fitness and technical ability. 2012 could be the year to achieve something that has never been achieved before. That alone seems like a decent incentive.