Which is the most important position in hockey?

So first up, we’ve got the forwards. They’d probably argue that they are the most important players on the pitch, because their role is to score goals, and you have to score goals to win games. Do they have to have the most skill? Well, you need to be able to shoot, eliminate and – contrary to popular belief- tackle, to be a good forward. They’re kind of handy if the game goes to a shootout, too.

But – hold on. The defence, surely, have more to do in the game. As well as performing tackles forwards could only ever dream of, they must out skill and outsmart the oncoming attack as well as keep a close eye on those nippy goal hangers. For them, the game is not just in the moment, it is about predicting the future and foreseeing that fatal pass or the deadly spin and strike before the other team has even thought about it themselves. The defence are the magicians of the team.

The midfielders would step in here and say that without them, there would be no one to tie these two ends together – there would be no team at all. Who does the most running? Who kindly takes the ball from the defence and gets it up to those forwards, so they can actually have the privilege of shooting? Who defends AND attacks simultaneously, and mostly gets credit for neither? The importance of the mids is perhaps underrated.

However, have you ever played a match without a goalkeeper? There is rarely a game in which the opposing team don’t get into the D at least once, and after they’ve bamboozled the defence and have an open shot at the backboard and the net – what next!? The heroic, fearless metal clad face of the goalie appears, and they set about diving and weaving like an unusually athletic hippo, or an acrobatic transformer, keeping that ball out of their goal. What do they transform, you ask?Electricity? No. They transform the game itself. The performance of a goalkeeper can make or break the perfect score line.

No, no, no – it’s not about the players. To see who really matters most, you’ve got to look to the bench. It’s the coach who really does all the hard work. They come up with the drills and the regimes to get the players fit and ready for the matches – they are the ones who sculpt the ingenious game plans and wondrously work the tactics. If the coach was absent, the team would all be running around like headless chickens. There would be no direction, no progression, and no winning. It would suck the fun out of hockey! Coaches are the most fundamental building block in the structure of the hockey team.

Of course, I’m only having a bit of fun. Every player, every coach, and every position is as important as the next. They all have different roles, and it is these individual roles coming together that makes a functioning, successful team. Like a living body, they would all suffer without any of the other vital parts. This is one of the things I marvel at and admire the most about hockey and team sports in general, the way everyone has different preferences and different strengths, and how this can all be brought together to create something so awesome. How boring would it be if we all loved the same position?  Diversity is our greatest strength!

The 23 long: an advantage, or a disadvantage?

So, hockey has a new rule. Getting new rules is usually pretty exciting, and to be honest from playing/watching with this new one, it’s no different. Instead of taking the ball out for a long corner when the defence hits it accidentally over the baseline, it is taken in line with where it went off back up at the 23 (I think – I really hope that’s right.)  It is supposed to open up the game, with the view being that players often get trapped and cut off in the corners. The game can reset with the attack going again from a more prime position.

Now, as a forward, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but what about the defence? They may have driven the player outwards away from the D towards the baseline, and when it goes out of play coming off them, instead of restarting a metre away, the entire thing is repositioned and the forwards have a tonne more options. I mean I know it’s not really supposed to consider the defence. As I’m not a defender, I may be wrong – maybe it is less of a risk to have the players up on the 23. But it sort of seems to me that yes, the corners are hard to get out of, and then going back to 23 is almost like a get out of jail free card for the forwards. Surely if they get themselves into the sticky situation that is the corner, they should very well have to get themselves out again? Isn’t that just a rule of life?

I believe another argument for the rule was that it makes it a better spectator sport, because those watching often can’t see what’s going on in the corners, and if play goes from the 23 then they are more likely to get a better view. Now, if you’ve read my other posts you’ll know I’m all for promotion of the sport – anything that makes it better for the spectators can only be advantage, really. But - is this not why we have big screens at games, and replays? I used to love watching players go from corners, especially internationals. It’s like watching an action film – aren’t the best moments the ones where the stars are in the trickiest situations and they have to get out? There is a certain thrill in the “so how exactly are they going to do this” moments. And, fairly often, they astound you with how they can escape from that small space and past the tight circle of determined defenders. It is the moment when you often see fancy 3.D., neat spins, and dummy passes. They have to think outside the box, and improvisation is usually where you see the coolest things – take the Knowles to Gover’s aerial deflection goal against England as a prime example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjFgNI-40C0).

It’s still possible to get “trapped” in the corners if the ball goes off the side line, so perhaps this new rule provides us with the best of both worlds. And, as my above example shows, these moments don’t just happen in the corners, they happen on all areas of the pitch; what we lose in the corners, we may gain in new skills in attacking from the 23.  I’m playing devil’s advocate really – I actually quite like this new rule. I’m merely pointing out that it has been brought in because it is “easier”, and the easier path in life is not always the best, or the most fun. Sometimes a challenge is welcomed.

The stick and ball game family

Although its exact origins are unknown, in the Beni Hasan tombs in Egypt, 4,000 year old drawings were found which show a simplified version of the game we would now call hockey.  The modern game was developed in 19^th century England, and with the rise of the British Empire this form of the sport was spread across the globe, which is one of the main reasons that hockey is so popular worldwide today.

The Irish game hurling, or camogie for women, can be dated as far back as 700BC, and like hockey, in the 19^th century the modern rules were created. Shinty, played predominantly now in Scotland, has similar historical roots, and both perhaps had an influence on the hockey we play today.

Lacrosse was first played by the Native American Indians, originally called “stick ball”, with the ball being made out of wood and then later out of deerskin. The name “Lacrosse” was invented by French missionary Jean de Brébeuf in 1636, and it is argued by many that this was derived from the French term for field hockey, which was “le jeu de la crosse.”

So, what are the differences? Hurling is played on a pitch that more resembles a rugby pitch than a hockey pitch, and the goals are a cross between football goals and rubgy posts. If the ball is hit into the bottom half of the goal, the team earns three points, whereas hitting it into the top half earns one point. The stick, or hurley as it is called, has a larger,flatter uncurved head, and players can use this to whack the ball into the air or hit it along the ground. They are also allowed to kick the ball and catch it in their hand, although only a limited number of times (it’s complicated!). The players also wear helmets as shoulder to shoulder contact is permitted.

Shinty is played on a similar sized pitch and is also a physical contact sport. The stick, or caman, is shaped more like a hockey stick than the hurley, but the ball is much smaller and lighter than a hockey ball, made out of leather. A player can stop the ball with his feet (so yelling foot at the umpire apparently would have no effect) and also with his chest; he can use the palm of his hand too but he is not allowed to catch it. Also, unlike hockey, both sides of the stick can be used.

The lacrosse field is closer in size to a hockey pitch, just slightly bigger. Like ice hockey, the ball can be played behind the goal. There is an offside rule, with a certain number of players needing to be in the offensive or attacking areas at one time; midfielders can flow between. The sticks of course are different again, with nets on the ends of them; the ball is passed from net to net between the players, and it hits the ground a lot less.  Like hurling and shinty, it is a contact sport and helmets are worn for protection.

So, is hockey getting back to its roots? Today, the hockey ball is getting played in the air more and more, with 3.D. skills, aerials and drag flicks. It’s not a contact sport, although in the men’s World hockey league final last night there seemed to be nearly as much physicality in the game as the clips of hurling or lacrosse I have seen. Will we soon be wearing helmets on the hockey pitch? We already have face masks at short corners, who’s to say it won’t get taken a step further in the future?

No, hopefully that won’t happen, because these sports are different in their own right; the similarities and variations are wonderful to see. It would be sad if they morphed into one another, as they are all exciting to watch and play. Hockey remains non-contact, and although the ball is now more airborne, the majority of the play is still along the ground, unlike the others. Like its cousins, it has its unique qualities which make it an entirely different sport.

So, here’s to the fans of lacrosse, hurling, camogie, shinty and hockey across the globe; it seems we are an extended family of stick and ball games!

Why is football a bigger and more televised sport than hockey?

This may seem like a pointless argument, but it really bugs me. Football, stripped back and thought of just as a sport, would be fine. The problem is it also comes with a grim and degrading culture which seems to be associated with swearing, drinking, fighting and cheating. The few times I have had the displeasure of watching a match, all I've seen is full grown men throwing themselves on the ground in desperate attempts to gain possession. My highlight of watching football has to be goalkeeper Joe Hart repeatedly screaming over the barrier “give me a f**king ball” when one was not immediately thrown into his waiting arms.  What a charmer. Really, I mean, such a good role model for the children of Britain and across the world. 

As I said, this isn't an attack on football as a game. It’s of course brilliant for kids especially to be involved with football, because it’s healthy for them to want to be part of a sport, and it is always great to see passionate and driven athletes. But, in terms of culture, hockey is undoubtedly one hundred times better. For one, the players respect each other and so do the spectators; you rarely see fights breaking out in hockey and the swearing is at a minimal. We all just fundamentally share the same love for the game itself. Sure, things do get a bit heated, but that’s all part of the competitive fun; the bottom line is things just don’t get as ugly as they do in football. The players conduct themselves much better during matches and in their free time; I am yet to see one of them spit on the pitch or dive on the floor. This may be because they are not paid, and they are celebrities on a much smaller scale, but that should not be an excuse for football players. In fact, as they are more in the public eye they should make even more of an effort to conduct themselves appropriately. Most of them are absolutely disgraceful role models, and sadly the culture of football allows this to continue, almost seemingly proudly.

So that’s one good reason why hockey should be bigger than football. The other is that hockey is actually a faster and arguably more exciting game, with more end to end action and more scope for tremendous skill.  It could have been argued that it was too fast to make a good televised sport, but technology has improved massively and the camera work now is exceptional; no part of the game is missed out. In Holland at the World Cup last year we were shown how airing hockey is done, with the spider cam and the goal cam allowing us to watch the game from some pretty exciting angles. We also incorporate the use of video umpiring, which keeps arguments on pitch to a minimum and makes sure the game is fair and the right decisions are made. Football is yet to make the transition to using video as a way of making their on pitch decisions.

Hockey has all the traditional aspects as football, so we don’t miss out on that; the teams sing their country’s national anthem and shake hands before the game commences. We just miss out the bit where people shine lasers in the player’s eyes when penalties are being taken, and the bit where people make racist comments on pitch and in the stadium. I’m not saying hockey is perfect, because it is a sport like any other and there are plenty of problems with it; I’m sure in some places there are plenty of fights and people do spit and use racist language. But on the whole that is not what you think of when you think of hockey; it does not have the same bad reputation that football has.

 I almost understand why it’s not globally as popular: you need more equipment and an astro in order to play hockey, whereas football can be played anywhere with almost anything. But this doesn't explain why it is not as televised; the Investec Hockey 5’s indoor finals this year had to be streamed online as opposed to being on the T.V. because a darts competition was being shown on Sky. I would argue darts isn't even a sport, but that’s an entirely different debate. During the commonwealth games last summer, hockey games were often pushed to the red button to make room for other more minor sports, which makes very little sense to me. People need to give hockey a chance and give it a watch when it is on, because then they’ll see how good it is and the viewing figures will do all the talking. If you can manage to sit through an entire football match, I guarantee hockey will be light relief in comparison. It is becoming a bigger sport, which is brilliant, but there is still a lot of ground work to do before we get premier division games shown live on sky sports one! 

"The cold never bothered me anyway": evidence Elsa never played hockey.

And so we come to the end of the season, a sad and fulfilling time for the majority of hockey players out there. The absence of the sport we all love leaves a gaping hole in our lives and leave us asking that fundamental question: what exactly do normal people do on a Saturday?

After the predictable and unstoppable onslaught of snow and ice in December and January which happens pretty much every year, it is also usually a time of crammed-in awkward Sunday games, where half the squad is inevitably unavailable. The remaining players, some often drafted in from other teams, are left unable to walk for at least three days after yet another double header weekend. The season thus comes to a painful and anticlimactic close just as the weather starts to become almost bearable.

In higher leagues, they had an ingenious idea. Why not take a break in these dreadful months where the majority of the time turning up to the pitch involves discovering it is rock solid, and the sideways sleet makes it nearly impossible to see your team mates, let alone the ball? Let’s give in to the weather for this period of time and go and play some indoor hockey, some genius said. So why, I’m fundamentally asking, do we not do this as well? Why do we continue to battle through the British arctic weather which we know will grace us in these months, while these smart people practice their skills in the warm and dry?

I know it will be argued that there simply isn't enough indoor space for every hockey player across the UK to play inside during December and half of January, but the amount of empty sports halls in schools, universities and sports centres would beg to differ. They are certainly enough to let a good few more leagues take this break at least. More indoor leagues could then be introduced and more indoor space found for teams that needed it. “And what about indoor kit?” some will ask. But apart from the edition of some new sticks, which do not have to be expensive and can be introduced cheaper in bulk by the club, there is no new kit that is needed. Just some fun new indoor skills!

Not attempting to play in the winter months would eliminate the awkward Sunday games and also take away the disappointment of having yet another training session cancelled. We don’t necessarily have to make the outdoor season shorter either, we could then extend league games into April slightly, because the weather isn’t too hot (if the weather’s ever too hot in the UK) and exams for the majority of students have not yet started. We could then play proper hockey at the end of the season instead of unwanted rearranged fixtures on top of the games we already have.  I know people probably have another dozen reasons why this isn’t a viable idea, but from an ideological point of view at least, it’s a no-brainer! Let’s all have a league break and play some more indoor!

Drag flicks and lifted hits.

I can't drag flick, and neither can anyone on my current team. It's still quite an unheard of skill in the women's side of hockey at least, and it's rarely seen at the level I play at. However, it's inclusion to the game has made for some quite contradictory rules concerning short corners: why on earth are we still not allowed to lift our hits when drag flicks are perfectly allowed?

So, at first, probably dating back to the 'on-grass' days (I'm still not an expert), it was to do with safety. A lifted hit at a short corner could hit someone in the face and do quite a lot of damage, so it was much safer to have all shots at backboard height initially. But then, the game evolved. The drag flick was discovered in the early 90's in the Netherlands (well, of course), and as it was considered a 'push' in the hockey rules, it was allowed to go any height at a penalty corner. Hits were to remain below the backboard as they were still much more likely to occur.

Then the drag flick gained popularity, and the techniques got better, stronger, faster. Now in an international game you will rarely see a short corner routine without a drag flick, on either the women's or the men's side; it has become an exciting and expected part of the sport. Safety did have to be considered just as before however, especially as the ball can travel more than 100 kilometres per hour - actually much faster than a hit. So, they introduced the use of face masks to prevent the risk of serious facial injury. They were not mandatory at first, although now I believe they are, or they soon will be. God knows why anyone would want to face a drag flick without one anyway.

But still, any hit shots that come in from a short corner have to stay on the ground. I guess the argument is that it still makes it more safe, because most people cannot drag flick, so therefore in most games it keeps the ball at a reasonable height. However, in our team we have a set of face masks anyway just in case we come across a drag flicker, and because deflections can be pretty nasty too. With that said though, the ball can be lifted at goal at any point in open play and we cannot protect ourselves with face masks all the time; that would just be health and safety gone mad. There's always going to be risks when playing the game, that's all part of participating in a sport.

The point is, the ball has a multitude of different ways of going in the air, and the risks of this are not stopped by omitting the lifted hit from the penalty corner rules. It has just become a bit of a weird exception, like the “i before e” rule of the English language, which is broken by something like 40 different words; it doesn't actually make sense. If face masks are becoming much more regularly worn anyway, and more people are learning to drag flick, then there's not exactly much of a safety risk allowing people to lift their hits at corners – it's no longer justifiable!  

The Shave Tackle

I'm not sure when it was invented, and I've only been introduced to it this season, but I personally think shave tackling is awesome. I was warned that umpires could potentially see it's brilliance as a blatant foul and blow for it, but that

didn't quite prepare me for yesterdays league game, when the umpire decided to consistently blow every time I tried one. And it wasn't just me; it was every single member of our team who executed one that got blown, even when they were perfectly clean and arguably genius tackles. I was fuming: does this guy know the rules at all? Does he even know what hockey is?

Harsh, I know, but it got me thinking. This guy was middle aged, maybe a little older. He probably got his umpiring qualification a long time ago, way before this type of tackle was introduced to the game. So, he's sort of out of the loop. What if level one's had to be renewed? I'm sure this is the case higher up in the hockey world, (although I'm no expert, and I don't pretend to be) but possibly having a time frame in which a qualification has to be repeated would be beneficial to the game. People will probably think I'm taking this way too seriously, I mean it's just one little thing - just avoid the shave tackles, right? But it's not just that, it's other little details in the game that have changed and can easily be missed by umpires who are not up to date with the current rules.

I think especially in men's hockey arguments can spark over any tiny little thing, and if the umpire is in fact wrong then the authority in the game is invalid, and this could lead to rougher and less civilised games. It creates unnecessary frustration from players and spectators alike and it doesn't allow the game to move forward. What if we, as a team, now decided to stop doing shave tackles, because we felt it was not worth it in case they got blown? We'd end up losing a valuable part of the game. I know this is only a problem lower down the leagues, because premier division and international umpires need higher qualifications. But millions also play hockey at lower levels, and if we want the sport to increase in popularity to counter the likes of football and golf, little things like this need to be fixed. It's not a big deal, something that's easily implemented: just make umpires retake their qualification every couple of years. No biggie.

I know what people would say. Umpires are hard to come by anyway, especially at lower levels. If you give them another thing they have to do other than turn up in the freezing cold and blow their whistle, teams are really going to struggle to find them at all. But what's the point of having a barely qualified umpire turn up? Quality over quantity would be an advantage to hockey players everywhere. Then we can work on the quantity with our planned world domination with the sport!

Some would argue that the changing, evolving side to hockey is a hindrance, but I think it's great. It keeps the game up to date and keeps the players on their toes; there's always new stuff to learn and new ways to train. But if we have umpires who are stuck in the past, how can we hope to move forward? We need them to be just as up to date as we are as players!