This weekend, October 27th-30th, will see the Annual Intervarsity Tournament make its way to Cork for what promises to be the biggest exhibition of third level hockey to date. This year's tournament will be hosted by UCC which is celebrating its 101st year in sport this year.

This year, for the first time, the competition will be open to all third level institutes in Ireland and will see a total of 24 teams representing 12 different institutions competing for the coveted Mauritius and Chilean Cups. This will see the beginning of a greater unity between the Colleges and University Hockey Associations as hopefully a better relationship is fostered between all students in Ireland who share a common passion for hockey.

The competition will use a group stage/ knockout stage format; there will be 3 groups of four teams in the group stages of the competition for both men and women. Then the final placing of each team in the group stage will decide if they compete in either the semi finals of the cup or of the plate competitions.

The results will be posted on the official tournament Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/ucchockeyintervarsities2012?fref=ts ) and there will also be some live twitter coverage provided by Southern Fried Hockey, @SFHockey , Munster's top hockey blog.