I haven’t been active on The Roar for a while, but old friends here would know – I am passionate about rugby.
Getting into rugby was falling in love at first sight: one glance at the TV and I was head over heels for the game.
I love rugby for its variety and nuance – the range of contests, set piece and counterattack, player shapes, culture and more.
However, while I watched the game, I never played. As a female, I grew up in the wrong era for that!
The sport I did play was hockey.
Like rugby, it’s an invasion sport. Unlike rugby, where hands are the primary form of distribution, the hockey stick is the fundamental tool. It’s like a magic wand, with the capability to distribute, evade and defend, but it’s also a tool of torture – bruises and breaks from hits and tackles are testament to this.
I absolutely loved playing hockey and played a fair amount but didn’t have the same mad passion for it as for rugby.
Life kept steering me away from fully engaging in hockey, especially with having kids, but after some years (and having been a minis rugby coach), I registered my eldest to learn the game.
As he got into it, my hands itched to do something, to be involved. I bought a cheap hockey stick so I could ‘help’ but really it was about feeding my own interest and instinct to play.
(Photo By Irina R. H./Europa Press via Getty Images)
I volunteered to coach which in the next week developed into being the club’s Hookin2Hockey coordinator(!) and thus began my re-immersion in the sport.
Re-familiarising myself with hockey has been eye-opening and so much fun. The game evolved rapidly in the years I was away and the skillset grew enormously, especially at the high performance level.
I am firmly a lower-grade player, but it’s amazing to see this growth. There are now skills deployed which I’d not heard of – wide drags, tomahawks, V-drags – as well as 3D skills, illustrating the acceleration in the aerial game.
I confess that my basic skills are sadly mediocre after having been away from the game. I will also confess that I spend more time trying out the fun skills instead of practising the basic ones in training. I prefer being playful, to being competitive.
There’s such a capacity for playfulness in hockey because there’s so much variety and nuance in the game.
Such as angles, which are a beautiful feature of hockey, with triangles a basic shape of attack. The teamwork involved in creating these can be sublime, with the interplay of speed, agility, orientation, stickwork and use of space.
(Photo by Getty Images)
Intelligent use of space has primacy in all sports, and in hockey the use of space by players off the ball is crucial in creating chances to receive it. Unrewarded running off the ball really is rewarded – unselfish work off the ball wins games.
Space is also about trust; the passer-receiver dyad is based on anticipation and an assurance that each player is doing their part.
Power and technique are important and demonstrated in many different ways, such as in the different hits, or a long overhead pass, or a flat stick tackle that stops a player in their tracks. Likewise, deftness in technique is also valued, applied in a tight or wide dribble or in a light deflection of the ball off the stick.
When teams make use of the different affordances in the game, beautiful things happen. In life, a team of champions can win against a champion team. Spirit, teamwork, a drive to learn and progress together are the ingredients for success.
The coolest part of all this? These aren’t exclusive to high performance teams or higher grades. As a 7th grader I see and experience these, and when it happens it brings a fillip of joy to the heart.
That is why I’m now addicted to and passionate about hockey. This passion has inspired me to watch as many games as I can to enhance my knowledge, play as often as I can to embed the learning, and coach so I can help grow knowledge – as well as a love of the game.
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