Australian National Underwater Hockey Tournament 2018

The 'jumbotron' at the end of the pool.

The two courts from the gallery.

The screen so that the spectators can watch the game.

The scoring keeping area.

The broadcast booth.

Physio and massage provided.

Lucy and Kami, mother and daughter players.

Lucy coaching from the pool deck.

and in the water.

Gearing up as a referee.

Talking to the Tasmanian men's team.

And they are off.

January 9-13

This was the week of the Underwater Hockey National Championship at HBF Stadium in Perth, Western Australia. This event is held annually at different locations in Australia. Most of the states send teams in four divisions: under 15, under 19, elite and masters (which are the older players who can no longer make elite). This year Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have sent teams, but not South Australia or the Northern Territory. Teams and members fluctuate from year to year because of the member enrolment of the clubs and money. There is no sponsorship in this sport so players have to foot the bill for their airfare, accommodation, food and they have to pay a stipend for participating. They also have to use their holidays or take a leave from work to attend. So, sometimes players cannot afford to play or they can’t get the time off work, or maybe they want to use their holiday time for something else. The under 15 and under 19 kids are chaperoned by their parents. The Victoria team is housed in two-bedroom apartment accommodation. There is one room for adults and the other room and a bed chesterfield in the living room for kids. Lucy and I are with Leo and Andy, two under 15’s.

Before the nationals, each state has a championship where they hold tryouts for the state team.

The facility is beautiful and huge. They have an indoor 50 m pool, a 5m deep Olympic diving pool, two 50m outdoor pools (one with 8 lanes and one with 10) and an outdoor pool dedicated solely to water polo. In addition, there is a trampoline area where the young divers learn the mechanics of the diving and a full gymnastics club upstairs with all the Olympic disciplines and equipment.

For the hockey tournament they have divided the indoor 50m pool into two courts (or rinks). There are two scoring desks with buzzers and officials. There are cameras mounted in the pools and two large monitors in the stands for parents and other players to watch. In addition, there is a large monitor mounted on the wall at the end of the pool that shows the feed from the cameras in court one that are being uploaded to YouTube and Facebook.

For a good short video explaining the game check here: 

Underwater hockey video

The goal is 3m long and 30 cm high. The ‘court’ is 22 to 25 m long and between 12.5 and 15 m wide and the depth is between 2 and 3 metres, all depending on the pool.

Each game is 30 minutes long, with two 15-minute halves and a 3 minute half time. A team must have a minimum of six players  and a maximum of twelve, where six would play with four subs who sit in the water in a roped off area just off the court; and 2 reserves out of the water or court. As always it is up to the coach how to utilize the reserve players (during the championship). There is no actual goalie, rather they play with three forwards and three defences this formation is the fundamental one, but there can be different formations like 2, 2, 2; it depends on many situations (typical game of the country, or depends who is the opponent, then the formation could change). The teams can be co-ed based on the membership of the state team, but at the elite level they are either a women’s team or a men’s team. Sometimes teams accept players from other states or countries in order to complete their teams. For example, there are two South Africans here, a couple of Canadians and a team from Singapore. If the team is made up of people from out of state it is called an Amazon team. Lucy’s Victoria women’s elite team is an Amazon team because they didn’t have enough state members who were good enough or who could get the time to fly to Perth. To score the player needs to shoot or push the puck to the goal. The puck doesn’t travel too far with a shot, so the game tends to be more about stickhandling to move the puck.

In each game there are four referees, three in the water and one on the deck watching from above and relaying score and penalty information to the scorekeeping officials. There are rules to the game and penalties for infractions. For rough play, a player can be penalized for one or two minutes and sits on the pool deck. Unlike our hockey the player sits there for the whole penalty despite how many goals the other team scores. The refs signal each other with hand signals and there is a buzzer that sounds to let players know when there is a stoppage in play or time outs and penalties. 

For the starting face off both teams swim from their own end and then dive to the middle where the puck is. This also happens after every goal. There are also faceoffs after infractions and they happen anywhere in the pool.

Players are equipped with a mask, snorkel, flippers, and a short stick. They stickhandle to control the puck which is weighted and stays on the bottom. They are not allowed to  use either hand to touch the puck. Because of the fact that most of the game happens on the bottom and the players need to surface to breathe it adds a couple of things to the game. You can’t have a ‘ball hog’ because of the air factor, and the game becomes very three dimensional as players swim along the surface and attack or join the play from above.

Lucy plays for the Victoria women’s elite team, coaches the Victoria under 15 team, and is a qualified referee as well. Her daughter Kami plays for the elite WA team as does her boyfriend Shannon and their roommate Rhys. Lucy and Kami are the only mother/daughter combo competing. Lucy says this is a family game as many players now have children playing at the junior level. This is also a game where you can graduate from level to level as you age.

The event is very organized and officially run. The players, coaches and referees are all very dedicated and passionate about this sport. The comraderie and collegiality are very evident. But having said that, probably that can be said about every sport and its membership, from the pros to Danny’s house league or select hockey and baseball teams. I find all of this fascinating… maybe I missed something in my life… team sports, but I was too busy being cool.

I spent the week watching the games, getting in the water videoing some of them with a GoPro, helping occasionally with score keeping, talking to players, refs, life guards and the parent chaperones of the Victorian kids. I also watched a game of water polo outside, a gymnastic training session, and divers being coached on the variety of trampolines and diving boards on the tower.

Lucy introduced me to a South African couple, Madelyn and Linden from Pretoria, who have immigrated to California with their two children. They met in South Africa. Although Linden had a successful company there they decided to immigrate to the US. Linden left first to start a business to be able to afford to bring Madelyn over. They couldn’t get a green card in the US despite the fact that he had developed a successful IT company there. They had lawyers working on their visas and eventually Madelyn heard about an opportunity through sport. She got her green card via underwater hockey. Over the years Linden started two companies, one in software and the other one was a solar company that employed 15000 people, the largest in the world. He put in 80-hour weeks for twenty years and made enough money to retire at 41 years old. Now they travel and participate in the sports they love, like underwater hockey tournaments. I had a good conversation with them about the sport and the state of South Africa. They both feel that the country has all the infrastructure to be a first world country but the endemic corruption in their government and throughout Africa is sinking the continent. They also feel that the whites are being squeezed out, similar to Zimbabwe and the whites are leaving. This is leaving holes in the skills of the South African workforce.

I overheard an older man named Paul, talking to a couple of young players and then I struck up a conversation with him. He has been playing the sport since 1975. For him it started when they couldn’t go spearfishing for gym class because the weather was ‘crap’ and the kids got upset missing sport and having to work in the class. So their teacher found them a sport they could play indoors in a pool. He told me that he competed in Vancouver in the 1^st World Championships in 1980 in a 6.5m deep pool! Now both his adult children play, and their children are starting as well.

Best line of the tournament was when I asked one of the Victoria players that I know, how his game was and he replied:  “We played like never before but we lost as always.”