THE men’s captain of Dunfermline and Carnegie Hockey Club’s outdoor side is keeping his fingers crossed for the chance to play a postponed European championship.

Michael Ross, 32, travelled to Belfast in December to play for Scotland in three indoor friendly matches with Ireland, and skippered the national side to three victories.

It had been set to be a warm-up for the 2022 EuroHockey Indoor Championships, which were to be held last month, but was postponed due to ongoing concerns over Coronavirus.

Scotland, who had been due to play Denmark, Ireland, Cyrprus, Lithuania and Sweden in Nicosia, Cyprus, in Championship III, will now have the chance to compete at European level after it was rescheduled for December.

Michael is aiming to be involved when that comes around and, speaking to Press Sport, he explained: “I’ve been fortunate to be involved for a while now.

“I was involved two years ago for the Europeans and, obviously with COVID and stuff, everything’s been cancelled and postponed.

“We were supposed to be having a Europeans in January but it’s been postponed until December this year so we had a small programme in place. They (Scottish Hockey) asked boys that were involved last time, and current players that are involved with the outdoor programme, to come and do some training sessions, and picked the best team to go away.

“We were building up for that but the postponement came. We were fortunate enough that, because the games (with Ireland) were still within the UK, we were OK to still go ahead and get playing.

“It will be good. I’m actually hoping and praying that we can do these sorts of things by then! I’ll probably put my hat in the ring again.These tournaments are great. They’re a great experience.

“You’re playing against the best of the best in Europe. It’s why you do the sport, to try and put yourself against these sorts of teams, so it’s a great opportunity.”

Expressing how lucky he felt to be able to travel and play against the Irish, Michael continued: “They were my first games actually captaining Scotland, so that was a bit of an honour.

“It’s not very often Scotland win anything so I’ll just kid on that it was something more important and glamorous than it was!

“All three games were three wins to us. They got closer as the three days went on. As we were speaking to them after, they were kind of joking that, if there was a fourth game, they might have actually beaten us!

“It was great to get away, very lucky with what’s going on with the world and the pandemic but, in terms of actual, quality hockey, you couldn’t have asked for much more at this time of year.

“It was superb.”