LAHORE, Nov 24 The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) on Tuesday honoured both its senior and junior teams for winning the World Cup qualifying round and Under-18 Asia Cup, respectively.

PHF President Qasim Zia gave away cheques of $1,000 to each member of the senior team, which qualified for the World Cup by winning in Lille, France, earlier this month. The members of the Asia Cup U-18 squad received Rs50,000 each.

The colts arrived late on Monday night from Myanmar after winning the Asia Cup, which also became their entry ticket to the 2010 Youth Olympics hockey tournament in Singapore.

They were accorded a warm welcome by the PHF president, Secretary Asif Bajwa and other officials on arriving at the National Hockey Stadium on Tuesday. Speaking on the occasion, PHF President Qasim Zia said that the performances of both the teams have made the nation proud and the journey towards more such victories would hopefully continue in the future, too. He said that Pakistan's national game was coming back on track for which the PHF congratulates the whole nation.

Qasim said that the back-to-back victories in a short span had breathed new life into hockey and the PHF was planning to earn laurels in the forthcoming Challenge Trophy-I as well as the World Cup.

While the Challenge Trophy, a qualifying round for next year's Champions Trophy, is being held in Salta, Argentina, from Dec 6, the World Cup will be staged in New Delhi, India, from Feb 28 next year.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Under-18 team Coach Olympian Khawaja Junaid attributed teamwork to their success in Yangon.

“The boys played with unity as all departments played with great coordination to take the title,” he said.

“They have with their fine play proved their potential to compete in any international event and we would be focussing on this lot in order to produce a good number of alternate players for the national team in the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, PHF Secretary Asif Bajwa said that the federation was trying to lift the game through big projects such as the PHF academies, which have been set up to prepare a backup for the future. “The PHF have made a heavy investment in the academies in order to build strong teams of all age groups,” he said.