Junior Program Coaches / 2024
Mini Program Director & Coach / Poonam Sandhu
Poonam is the former Head Coach of the UBC women's field hockey program from 2018-2023. She has also served as an assistant coach/selector with the junior national women's program. Prior to her coaching career Poonam captained the UBC t-birds in 2014 and won 6 USports championships as an athlete and coach. Poonam holds a Masters of Science in sport and exercise Psychology and is a mental performance consultant with the Canadian Sports Psychology Association.
In addition to her experience with the Thunderbirds, Poonam has also competed internationally as a member of the Canadian women's field hockey team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. She is a two-time U SPORTS All-Canadian and a two-time U SPORTS Championship All-Star having scored the game-winning goal in the championship final in both 2012 and 2015.
A Vancouver native, Poonam currently resides in Surrey and plays with the IFHC Women's Div 1 program and will be leading our Mini Program for the second year ! We are very excited to have her with us.
Mini Program Coach / Prava Sandhu
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Prava, like the rest of her family has been apart of IFHC since she was young. IFHC has helped her gain the skills to go on to play for York University where she went on to win 2 OUA championships with her team (2018&2022). Prava was also selected as an OUA Allstar in her 2021 season. She is currently finishing her degree in Kinesiology and is working toward her career as an Athletic Therapist. Prava is currently on the women’s Indoor field national team and has competed in the Indoor World Cup as well as traveled with the team on tours to Austria and Czech Republic.
We are very excited to welcome Coach Prava back for her 2nd year with our Mini Program !
U12 Boys Head Coach / Junior Program Director / Ravi Gill
Born and raised in Richmond BC, field hockey is in Ravi's family like all of our other Coaches. Ravi has been a member of the IFHC family since the beginning of the Junior program in 1988. Ravi is a past member of the BC U18 and U21 teams and is currently a Player / Coach for our Men's Div. 1 team.
For the past 4 years he has been sharing his hockey experience and knowledge by Coaching our Women's Div 4 team and helped them win the Championship last year in Div. 5 Competion. Ravi is now in his 3rd year coaching our U12 Boys team and volunteering as the Junior Program Director.
U14 Girls Head Coach / Junior Program Director / Gary Sangha
Gary has been a member of IFHC since birth, with his father Narinder Sangha being one of the pioneers of the Club. Gary grew up playing for our Junior program at all age levels and his passion for the Club and sport grew into him becoming the Manager & Coordinator for our Men's program.
Gary's commitment to grow our sport and have youth in our community pick up a hockey stick has lead him to coaching and being a Junior program coordinator. He has been coaching our Girls U11 / U14 teams for a number of years and can be seen helping out every weekend where needed.
Gary currently plays for our IFHC Men's Div 2 team and is the team Manager for India A team. Gary is also a League administrator with the Vancouver Men's Field Hockey League.
U16 Boys Head Coach / Muhammad Imran
Coach Imran has been with IFHC for over 4 years now and has provided valuable leadership on and off the field.
A former Team Captian for the Pakistan national team, he captained the gold medal winning team in the 2012 & 2103 Asian Champions Trophy. In the Asian Games he lead the team to a Gold medal in 2010 and in 2014, he also captained the silver medal winning team.
Known as a wicked drag flicker and lockdown defender, Coach Imran brings tremendous experience to our hockey community and is a asset to have with IFHC. Having played at the top levels of our sport he know the training and dedication needed to excel.
Currently Imran is Coaching our India A Men's Premier team and playing with our Div. 1 Men's team. He is an active coach with Field Hockey BC and has been taking charge of our U16 IFHC Boys team for 2 seasons now.
U18 Girls Head Coach / Bindi Kullar
Bindi comes from a Field Hockey family with his father Pritpal being one of our Clubs founding members. Bindi has been with IFHC since the beginning of our Junior program in 1988 and has been a key part in attracting so many young players to play this game over the years.
In, 1996 Bindi partcipated in his first World Cup at the age of 20, he later went on to play in 2 Commonwealth Games, 2 Pan American Games where he helped Canada win Gold. The pinnacle of his International career was leading Canada into 2 Olympic Game berths - Sydney & Bejing.
Locally, Bindi has been awared Player of the Year and Leading Goal scorer in the VMFHL on numerous occasions and has lead our India A Premier team as Captain for 2 decades. He is still playing believe it or not with our Premier team !
His passion for game has not stopped, Bindi has been a key part in growing our Women's program over the past number of years. Bindi is our Div 1 Women's team coach and leads many Clinics for players who want to excel at the sport.
U16 Boys Assistant Coach / Habu Sidhu
Harbir grew up in Victoria, BC and played for the UVIC Vikes. He played in the Team Canada Junior program including representing Canada at the 2016 Junior World Cup. He made his senior national team debut in 2017 but played the bulk of his senior caps in the last year including representing Canada at the Commonwealth Games and Nations Cup and this just got back from the Olympic Qualifier tournament.
Habu currently is Vice captain of our India A Premier team and is active in supporting our Junior players on the field at practices and games.