Thirty teams to contest 16th Hockey India Junior Women National Championship in Pune

Thirty teams will take part in the 16th Hockey India Junior Women National Championship 2026 in Pune, which gets underway on Wednesday and runs through August 23.

The tournament is organised across three divisions — A, B and C — with promotion and relegation between them and a division-based format intended to provide a pathway for teams to compete at appropriate levels. The event will determine the national junior women's champion and affect teams' divisional status for the next edition.

Division A comprises 12 teams split into four pools: Pool A (Jharkhand, Punjab and Chandigarh), Pool B (Haryana, Odisha and Bengal), Pool C (Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Manipur) and Pool D (Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal). The Division A league stage begins on August 16, with each side playing the other teams in its pool.

From Division A pool play the top two teams in each pool will qualify for the quarterfinals, scheduled for August 20. The semifinals are set for August 21, with the third-place match and the final both slated for August 23; the 12 Division A teams are contesting the national championship title while the teams finishing 11th and 12th will be relegated to Division B for the next edition.

Division B features 10 teams split into two pools: Pool A includes Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Delhi, Kerala and Mizoram, while Pool B contains Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Goa. The two highest-placed teams in Division B will be promoted to Division A, and the bottom two teams will drop to Division C.

Division C comprises eight teams divided into two pools. Pool A lists Arunachal, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Rajasthan and Tripura; Pool B includes Puducherry, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir and Telangana. The top two teams from Division C will move up to Division B for the next edition.

Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey said, "With teams competing across three divisions, the tournament will provide young players with valuable competitive exposure while strengthening the domestic pathway."

The championship concludes with the Division A final on August 23 in Pune, which will decide the 2026 national junior women's champion and finalise promotion and relegation outcomes for the next edition.