The opening ceremonies.
Lucy and some of her team mates.
The two courts of the pool and the video screens.
Lucy in the players box.
And away they go.
In the 'sin bin' after a penalty.
The screens allow you to see the action.
Shaking hands after a match and ...
the rallying call at the beginning of a game.
Getting back in the pool after the accident.
Walking back to the hotel. See why the cleaning lady was scared?
The Master's Women Silver Medalists.
July 20-28th.
CMAS World Underwater Hockey Championships
This event is held every two years and this year, the
20th Championship, was held in Quebec City. Lucy was determined to
be a participant and had two potential teams to play for. She is a native
Colombian and had played for Colombia in 2016 in Stellenboch in South Africa
where her team won the bronze medal. But she is now an Australian citizen and
if she made the team could play for them. As it turned out the Colombian coach
wanted her to come to Colombia for the tryouts, which is a very expensive
proposition for her. Every time she enters an event she has to use her personal
holidays and pay all her own expenses. So going there for the tryouts would use
up most of the time (and money) she was saving to go to Canada. The problem was
solved when she was selected for the Australian Women’s Masters team after the
National Championship in Perth in January 2018. Lucy was delighted as Australia
has always been the power house of the sport and in Stellenboch they won the
gold medal in three of the four divisions. There are Men's Elite, Women's Elite,
Masters Men, and Masters Women. Elite is the best of the country and masters is
the division for excellent older players. She figured this would be her best
chance to win the gold medal, to go along with the bronze and silver she had
earned in previous championships.
The championships in Quebec were attended by 16
countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Great
Britain, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain,
Turkey, West Germany and the United States. After a few days of ‘friendly’
games to get acclimatize to the time zone and get used to the pool and
facility, the event got underway on the 20th of July and ended on
the 28th.
The pool was in the new sports facility at Laval
University, where there are two pools, one of which was devoted to the
championships. That pool was divided into three sections: one of lanes for the
teams to warm up in, and the other two sections were the game courts. There
were cameras underwater and a big screen dedicated to each of the courts. There
was a gallery of rows of seats for spectators which were mainly other teams,
coaches and families of players. Each game had four referees, three in the pool
with flippers and masks and one on the pool deck who relayed the calls from the
in-pool refs to the teams, by buzzers heard underwater, and to the score
keepers by hand signals. The event was run with military-like efficiency. Each
game started at a precise time and after years of these tournaments they know
just how much time is needed between matches. Each game consists of two 15-minute
halves.
Each team has 10 players, six in the water and four
subs on the bench. There are three forwards and three backs. There is no goalie
and all players, especially the backs often play goalie together as the goal
trough is 3 metres long and 18 centimetres high.
After the initial few rounds it became apparent that
although Australia was still a powerful country and a force to be reckoned
with, other parts of the world had improved substantially, France in
particular. At the end of the round robin portion of the tournament all four
Australian teams found themselves in the unfamiliar position of third place in
their respective divisions. New Zealand and France held most of the first-place
spots.
Going into the medal round each team had to win two
games to win the gold. Losing one would mean they would have to play for bronze
and if they lost that: no medal. Then disaster struck: First the Masters Men were
defeated in the round of 4 by Great Britain and after beating Colombia they
were defeated by the US and had to settle for 5th place. Then the
Elite Men were knocked out of medal contention by Turkey and then the US and
had to win against Spain to take 5th place out of 16. and the Elite
Women were defeated by South Africa in the round of 4 and had to win against
Canada to gain 5th place.
So, Australia’s last hope for a medal was with the
Masters Women’s team which Lucy played for. The teams had played three times so
far, in a friendly which Australia won, a first round round-robin which was a
draw and a second round that Colombia won. So, the teams were very even. Of
course, Lucy wanted to beat her home country. The Australians scored first.
Then the Colombians had a penalty shot. From what I have seen the odds of
stopping two players with one goalie and a 3m goal tray is about the same as a
soccer goalie trying to stop a penalty shot with that huge net. However, the
Australian goalie did stop it, but it was declared a goal because apparently
she touched it with her free arm. So, 1-1 at half time. In the third minute of
the second half Lucy got the 2-kilogram lead (rubber cased) puck straight in
the nose from very close range. She was carried out by the referees woozy and
bleeding heavily where she was administered to by two Australian doctors, one who was a player on the men's master's team and the other was the team manager. They worked on her nose to control the bleeding as the
game went on. But, because each team only has ten players (six in the pool and
four subs) the Australian team had to play one player short. They had to play
longer and sub less. Then the Australians scored to make it 2-1 while Lucy
recovered and was putting her equipment back on. When the crowd saw that they
chanted ‘Lucy, Lucy…’. She got back into the team box, but as it was very late
in the game by that point, she never got back into the game. Thankfully the
team held the Colombians off and won the game. That assured them no less than
the silver medal in the Masters Women’s final on Saturday against France. When
she left the pool after the game she had a bandage on her nose and two tampons
up her nostrils. When she entered the hotel, climbed the stairs and opened the
door to our hall she scared the wits out of a hotel worker on the other side of
the door. That made everyone laugh.
The gold medal game was at 1:00 on Saturday afternoon.
It was the first of the gold medal games of the four divisions. After the warm
up the players were introduced and then their respective national anthems were
played. France scored first, then Australia tied it up and the half ended that
way. Close game, but unfortunately it didn’t stay that way as France eventually
ran away with it for a final of 6-1. It was a disappointing score but not
unexpected as the other two times they played France won 8-0 and 4-1. They were
a younger, faster team and only gave up 9 goals in the 12 games they played in
the tournament, including the finals. Pretty hard to beat a team who can do
that. They deserved the win.
The medal presentations were held in the same gym as
the opening ceremonies. The Australian Master’s Women team was the only
Australian team to reach the podium with France gold, Australia silver and
Colombia bronze. The other three Australian teams finished fifth in their respective
divisions. Anyone wanting more information can check the CMAS website which shows
all the results and where you can stream any game you wish to see. The link is:
The final Women’s Masters game was G269 and the semi-final
where Lucy got injured was G258.
The whole event ended with a dinner and party for all
participants.
I enjoyed the tournament, watched some great
underwater hockey, and made some new friends. I enjoyed exploring beautiful
Quebec City again. I brought my bicycle and bathers here and went cycling several
times in down time and made use of the pool to do some swimming too. Time to
get fit again after a year bouncing around in buses, vans and trucks. The time
here also gave me the time to knuckle down and finish all the blog entries for
Mongolia and the trip summaries. One more post after this one and it will be on
hiatus for a while.
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