The appointment means the Winnipeg 1999 Pan American Games gold medal winning hockey player will move from his role as Field Hockey Canada's (FHC) director of sport development to join its high performance team where he will work closely with head coach Ian Rutledge.

As well as being a member of the Canadian men's hockey squad for more than 13 years, D'Abreo has already held the women's assistant coach position from 2005 to 2010.

He then became head coach of the men's team before becoming director of sport development in 2012.

He will now work Rutledge to build strong teams for the 2013 Junior World Cup in Germany, the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games and the Rio 2016 Olympics.

"Robin has coached a broad spectrum of women's field hockey provincially and nationally for nearly a decade," FHC's high performance and national teams manager Gene Muller said.

"An experienced Canadian national team member with a great passion for the sport combined with his strong leadership skills and coaching abilities, he will play an integral role in achieving the ambitious goals the women's programme have set for the next cycle leading up to 2016.

"Robin's move into high performance is a winning mix which highlights our efforts to restructure our programmes to find the best people to develop the best players."

Canada's women's hockey squads have not qualified for an Olympic Games since Barcelona 1992, where they placed seventh. 

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