There will be a global sporting focus on Scotland next year with the staging of the Ryder Cup and the Commonwealth Games challenging our organisational capacity.

But 2014 will also be a testing time for the country's most ancient sport of shinty.

The Camanachd Association (CA) is already preparing ambitious plans for the creation of a National Shinty Archive to include a physical archive of significant artefacts, a National Shinty Exhibition and a Shinty Hall of Fame which will be both digital and at physical locations still to be decided.

It is all part of the CA's attempt to modernise both the image and organisation of the sport.

But the real challenge for the CA will be to make its league reconstruction work. Despite significant opposition from certain clubs, the association is pressing ahead with the reduction of the Orion Group Premiership, which has teams from both north and south, from 10 teams to eight.

But at the same time, rather controversially, at the level below, the area leagues, North Division One and South Division One are being abolished.

This second tier divided geographically for decades. But now they are to be replaced by an eight-team national league with four each from the north and south.

The idea is to try to improve the standard in the south, which has only two leagues as opposed to the north's three.

But there are concerns centred on the distance the second tier teams will have to travel. Beauly to Bute and back is the best part of 400 miles, while Caberfeidh's home in Strathpeffer is about the same from Glasgow Mid Argyll's base.

There are plenty of senior players who will baulk at the idea of giving up so much time for an away game. There is also a fear over the loss of local rivalries (just try the New Year's Day match between Lovat and Beauly) and the downgrading of what is left behind, with once proud teams facing reserve sides.

What remains extraordinary is that such tiny communities can keep a team going at all, often two. Shinty alone among sports seems to prosper where there are few people to play or support it. The top end of the game is dominated by teams from villages of around 1000 population - Newtonmore, Tighnabruaich (Kyles Athletic), Kiltarlity (Lovat), Inveraray, Drumnadrochit (Glenurquhart), Kingussie, Corpach (Kilmallie) and Kinlochshiel which draws from several villages such as Balmacara, Dornie, Kyle of Lochalsh.

Meanwhile, the largest settlement and only city in the Highlands, Inverness, hasn't enjoyed national success since winning the Camanachd Cup in 1952.

There is a feeling that whatever else this reorganisation does, it is not going to make it any easier for the shinty villages. The challenge for the CA is to ensure its changes will not restrict the local lifeblood which has kept shinty at the heart of community life. Meanwhile, there is also the suggestion the CA swing a caman at assertions elsewhere about which sport is our "national" game, for example, golf!