Uva Rhinos take home the Signature Cup
Uva Rhinos scored a close 1-0 victory over Colombo Dragons to carry away the glittering Signature Cup at the inaugural Masters Hockey League 2017 at the Astro Turf Hockey Complex, Colombo seven, yesterday.
Over 100 legends of yesteryear were in action in the tournament organised by the Sri Lanka Masters National Hockey Association and main sponsored by Signature.
Though the games were slow in attack and moves, but the body languages of the stalwarts proved that their hearts were still young to give service to the sport they loved much in which the standard had deteriorated gradually.
In the Finals of the Cup segment Uva Rhinos faced stiff resistance from Colombo Dragons who made several invasions to the Uva ‘D’ area but failed to score while the champs with a little faster game than the Colombo team too made some good moves but lack of finish lost chances of scoring.
There was no scoring in the first half and the dying stages Uva stickers making a late rally saw C.K. Gunapala sounding the board to give Uva Rhinos a well deserved win.
In the Shield finals Matale Panthers registered a hard fought 2-1 win over Colombo Wolves. D.B. Dissanayake and M.M. Mulafar scored each for the winners while Linus Jayasekaran scored for the Colombo Wolves.
Praveen Chanaka’s solitary goal helped Colombo Tuskers to trounce Matale Vipers 1-0 to win the Bowl finals.
Kandy Lions beat Merc Spiders 1-0 to win the Plate with Saman Wandalen broke the Merc Spiders defence to score in the second half of the game.