Going Down
It may be called Under Water Hockey and, yes, there is a stick but, with the addition of masks, snorkels, flippers and a two metre deep swimming pool, the resemblance to field hockey ends at the name. Amanda Haxton gets a glimpse into this obscure underwater world.
New Zealand teams are highly successful in Under Water Hockey but, because it isn’t a spectator sport, the game flies under the radar with a low profile. President of Auckland Underwater Hockey Roger Bannan says “It seems a bit weird playing hockey underwater, but the concept you’ve got to get around is you’re not hitting the puck.”
“It’s not like field hockey other than it’s a team sport. You don’t hit the puck, you push it or flick it. It’s like pushing something along on the floor with a broom you just swim around with it and then try and flick it. Good players will go down in the water and stay down for quite a while and then come back up.”
Bannan has been playing and coaching for almost a decade after his two daughters started playing at secondary school. The game was created in England in 1954 and Bannan believes they’ve got one of the first ever players right here in Auckland.
“We’ve got a player in Auckland who must have been playing for 50 years, and he’s from the UK.”
“It’s been going a really long time. We used to play with long hockey sticks and now they’ve shortened the sticks up, it has gotten way more sophisticated. We wear gloves now so your hand doesn’t get smashed up and we’ve got mouthguards so your teeth don’t get knocked out.”
Despite these precautions Bannan laughs of the suggestion Under Water Hockey is a violent game; in fact it’s considered a non-contact sport.
“There’s just that small probability that the puck might hit you in face.”
The sport, alternatively known as Octopush, takes influences from Water Polo, Ice Hockey and Diving and is growing in popularity, particularly at secondary school level. “New Zealand is actually very good at Under Water Hockey, we have been champions in the Men’s, Men’s Masters and the Juniors,” says Bannan.
With around 17 different countries competing internationally that’s something the sporting community could be proud of, if they only knew about it. “New Zealand has been one of the best men’s teams for quite a while,” says Bannan. “We’ve always been very good. The juniors, the men’s under 23s and under 18s are really good and the under 18 girls are strong competitors.”
Pockets of popularity can be found up and down the country. The national tournament has around four hundred players, four grades with 10 teams in each and 10 players per team.
“We might have a hundred in Auckland, Wellington would have a hundred, Christchurch might have 20 or 30 and then you’ve got smaller areas like Bay of Plenty and Tauranga which are pretty strong, and Hamilton’s quite strong, we’ve got more and more teams popping up.”
“There’s slowly a better following coming through, a lot of the younger ones are continuing to play once they leave secondary school. The tricky part with most sports is keeping people playing. That’s generally where the problem is, the retention of those players.”
Bannan says the biggest problem the sport faces is getting pools deep enough to play in, with clubs games currently played in Mt Albert, Manurewa and Henderson.
He says it’s a social sport which appeals to New Zealanders but it isn’t widely known about. “It’s often driven by some enthusiast who will drive it through a school system or wherever and they’ll manage to get a team and take part.”
“It goes with New Zealand, we have a love of water, people love swimming.”
The world championships are held every four years, the last took place in Christchurch and next year will be held in Portugal. There are regular competitions in Australasia with New Zealand teams competing against Australia as this issue went to print.
Despite this, Under Water Hockey is not an Olympic sport. “The problem with that is it’s a water sport and it’s not a great spectator sport, although we do use underwater cameras,” says Bannan.
“The hard part would be to replace something like Water Polo, it would be very hard to get it into the Olympic Games, it would be great if it did.”
Interested in playing? Email: Mcgill-Bannan@xtra.co.nz