A number of EHL regulars have been named on the shortlist for the FIH Hockey Stars awards.

Den Bosch’s Frédérique Matla can potentially add the women’s Player of the Year gong to her perfect 2021 having already bagged EHL gold and Hoofdklasse glory on the club front as well as European Championship and Olympic gold on the international stage.

She is up against a couple of her Dutch team mates with AH&BC Amsterdam’s Maria Verschoor and her long-time club mate Eva de Goede – who moves to HGC this summer – also up for the award.

Agustina Albertarrio, Agustina Gorzelany and Gurjit Kaur complete the shortlist.

On the men’s side, HC Bloemendaal’s Arthur van Doren is another looking to add to an incredible year which has brough EHL, Hoofdklasse and Olympic gold and a Euro bronze.

He is joined by corner expert Alexander Hendrickx along with a trio of Australians – Tim Brand, Jake Whetton and Aran Zalewski – and India’s Harmanpreet Singh.

Rot-Weiss Köln’s Vincent Vanasch could win his fourth successive goalkeeper of the year crown having won on 2017, 2018 and 2019. His rivals this year are PR Sreejesh and Andrew Charter.

On the women’s side, Maddie Hinch can potentially add a fourth title, too, having won the best goalkeeper prize in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

With no Hockey Stars Awards in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 global health pandemic on the international calendar, this year’s awards cover the period from January 2020 through to the conclusion of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

It means the 2020-21 edition of the FIH Hockey Pro League has been taken into consideration.

In another change from the norm, the Hockey Stars Awards nominations and voting will now take place around August and September of each calendar year going forward, moving away from its traditional December-January launch period.