At the 3rd edition of the CoachSG Conference, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu launch the Singapore Coach Medallion. This prestigious award was initially muted as the Outstanding Sports Coaches Award Singapore (OSCAS in short). However, it was renamed as the Singapore Coach Medallion to recognise exemplary coaches who have gone beyond their call of duty to make a positive difference in society through sport.
Kanan Packrisamy of Singapore Cricket Club, made the Hockey fraternity proud by being one of 10 recipients for the inaugural award ceremony during the CoachSG Conference held on 14 and 15 October at Republic Polytechnic.
Kanan, was nominated by the Coaching Committee of the Singapore Hockey Federation alongside five other outstanding hockey coaches and 150 others from all other national sports association in Singapore in the early part of August this year.
He made the interview stage shortlist and then was selected to make the list of finalist. As one of the finalist one of his coaching session was recorded and assessed by the experienced panel of judges who felt him worthy of being awarded the Singapore Coach Medallion (Community Coach Category).
This is the 48 year old’s first ever coaching award in a coaching career spanning 24 years now. “I am truly honoured to receive such a prestigious award. We coaches never work thinking about awards. Our time is usually consumed by trying to make our players as best as they can be. Especially if we work with kids. So being nominated and then receiving the award is a humbling experience. It validates our methods and truth be told makes you want to do better. I am very grateful to the Singapore Hockey Federation, who felt that I was worthy of such an accolade, equally thankful to Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) for giving me the opportunity to coach and finally indebted to the players at SCC for performing so well that I get recognised for the sum of all their efforts”, said the father of a 2+-year old daughter and 11-month old son.
Kanan, who has a full time job outside of hockey continues to coach as he truly loves it and it brings him great amount of joy. He also wanted to dedicate this Medallion to his wife, Sangeetha Sivakumar, who has sacrificed many of her weekends so that he could pursue this dream of being involved in hockey as long as he can.
Kanan, who plays in NHL5 with Orient said that as part of the award he has been handed a seed fund to start any sporting initiative. He intends to use this fund to help the growth of hockey at the school level.
