Carolyn rockets to sports hall of fame

INDUCTION into The Sports Hall of Fame has been long in coming to Carolyn Bart, but as she says in her very philosophical manner: “Nothing happens before its time.” Ironically, Carolyn’s first year at inner-right in 1970 on the Rockets A division hockey team, was my final year at centre forward.  Thirty-four years ago, and I can still remember how sure one was about a pass from this brilliant player who had only learned the game at Holy Name Convent, two years before.

Says the very skillful player who could beat her way through a maze of defenders up to her retirement from the game in 1989: “I had played a little bit of netball at Holy Name but always felt that I could play hockey, it was always a game that intrigued me. One day Form Four had a phys-ed period, one of the girls who was a member of the school’s hockey team was told to practise her hockey during the physical education period by the games teacher, Myrna Tidd, who also happened to be coach of the school hockey team. There was nobody to hit to her and I  took up a hockey stick and decided to hit back to her.’” That was the beginning of one of the most prolific goalscorers whose zig-zagging solo efforts became a constant in first division hockey. A sportswriter once wrote: “If coach Myrna Tidd did not spot Carolyn Bart  playing aimlessly with a hockey stick,  Trinidad women’s hockey would have been denied one of their most outstanding inside rights.”

On leaving Holy Name in 1969, Flavia Marin, captain of the school team, introduced Carolyn to Rockets and coach Otto Phipps, who immediately selected her on the Rockets A team in 1970.  In that year Carolyn played on Trinidad’s second XI.  By 1971, she was on the National team and played her first international match at the Queen’s Park Oval against the mighty Netherlands, who were en route to New Zealand where they won the world hockey tournament. She was a member of the Rockets team which won the A division league title from 1970-73 and again in 1975, and headed the list of  goalscorers for seven consecutive seasons from 1970-1976. In 1972 when Rockets scored the most goals ever in a single game 15 vs Redsox, Carolyn scored eight, which included two hat-tricks, a record which still stands, and in that same year she was the leading scorer with 23 goals when Rockets scored the most goals in a season totalling 75 with just two against.
 
In 1976, Carolyn travelled with Rockets to the ten nations Latin America and Caribbean tournament in Mexico and helped her club to win the tournament by beating the powerful San Fernando team of Argentina which boasted nine national Argentine players.  Carolyn was club captain from 1983-1986. Carolyn represented Trinidad and Tobago in six Caribbean biennial tournaments between 1972 and 1982, in which last year she was captain of the team.  She was nominated as the WITCO Hockey Sportswoman of the Year  in 1978 and that same year was voted the Most Outstanding Forward In the Caribbean. Carolyn went to  two world tournaments, 1975 in Scotland and 1979 in Vancouver. At the end of 1982, she called it quits at national level. Having always worked with the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago ( then of Canada), and  having always received their total support, with unlimited time off for national service, Carolyn, who was then climbing the corporate ladder, decided that the demands and discipline at national level, in addition to club training, hockey had become a 24/7 job. She continued club hockey up to 1989 and after 19 years hang up her stick.

Carolyn’s number one fan was  her late father, school principal Hector Bart, who along with her late mother, Dulcie, “supported me 110 per cent. My Belmont neighbours, like the late Jim Harding and Hamil Gamaldo, always supported me.  I could never forget Gerry Gellineau, a member of  the men’s national team, and recognising my talent, used to meet me every Sunday morning, and together with Jannis Awai, drilled us for three to four hours religiously on Queen’s Royal College grounds, improving our skills and condition.” “Those were my happiest days,” says Carolyn, “and I enjoyed every minute of hockey, with team and club mates, we were like family, and we are still friendly even though we have gone our separate ways.  We  understood each other, played hard, partied just as hard, and did it all together.”