As editor of Go Hockey News it was my pleasure to be in attendance at the 2013 National Masters Hockey Tournament in Auckland, New Zealand. Sixty seven teams ( according to the event programme) of hockey legends, aged between 35 and 55+, gathered at Lloyd Elsmore Hockey Stadium to go into battle from March 3rd to 9th. This was a record number of teams. Masters hockey is on the rise. This is understandable. It would be difficult to find another sport in which you can be competitive into your twilight years and which caters for both men and women.
All teams were representative teams from all over New Zealand. It was the biggest event on the New Zealand hockey calendar. Many players might like to play down their competitive spirit but after watching teams take the field it was game on and very serious. There was some intense rivalry especially when Auckland lined up against North Harbour. All the blood sweat and tears that went into pre event training was now going to be evaluated in terms of its worth as teams played day after day. Mind you this does not take into account the post game team debrief at the bar, which generally took many hours as each team member had to take a turn to shout. Each day was like a crescendo as the day approached the evening hours game spectators were more and more vocal. It reminded me of a school swimming carnival. There was also plenty of old friends renewing their relationship and reminiscing of their past playing experiences over a Heineken or two.
Hockey New Zealand Masters is administrated by a council of six people who when you add up their playing years it would number 250 years plus. Each of these people, Craig Brett, Nellie Macdonald, Doug Sommerville, Lynda West, Lloyd Hughes, Irene Ryan, and Dorothy Walker are like so many of other players in the event. They do a great job for administrating New Zealand masters but are like also many other players at the event who are the ‘movers and shakers’ behind hockey development in New Zealand in areas of administration, coaching and financially. Their passion for playing has resulted in them putting back value into game to help those that come after them. Only in recent years has national hockey organisations began to recognise the valuable input of the people playing at Masters hockey.
I was impressed with both the playing facilities and dare I mention the weather. The Lloyd Elsmore Stadium is both an idyllic and functional hockey centre. The largely glass structured, dual game viewing clubhouse should be a template design for hockey centres worldwide. During the course of the event I struck up conversation with many participants.
Of those I talked to one stood out. The reason being he represented what hockey as a sport has sitting in the palm of their hands and needs to direct more marketing strategies into to grow the sport. Muzz was his name (or as he introduced himself to be). I asked him about his representative playing career, expecting it to be lengthy. He was playing as a 37 year old for North Harbour 35’s. To my amazement it was only his 3rd season of playing. He was an athletic person (basketballer and volleyballer) whose introduction to hockey was to coach his daughter’s primary school team when his daughter approached him because they were coach less. Like any father who desires to please his baby girl he took up the challenge. He commandeered the services of a friend’s teenager hockey daughter to help and that is where the love affair with hockey started. “I love this game of skill, I am a sponge to learn all about it, I went to the Master’s trials and all the practices” Muzz shared. His big break came when a selected representative player pulled out. He is now a ‘hockey lifer’. Muzz is like a growing number of sports lovers out there that when they get a taste for hockey in their middle adult years they can become the future hockey coaches, managers, administrators and of course players. This is one reason why Masters hockey has much going for it.
What was memorable about the NZ Masters Tournament other than the characters and comradeship that was so evident was the high playing calibre of the players themselves. From this tournament the New Zealand Masters representative teams were selected. They were selected from 34 mens and 33 ladies teams to compete against arch rivals across the Tasman, Australia. These are small team numbers when one considers the available masters player pool in Australia that National teams are selected from. Small in numbers but high in player ability levels. The Australia and New Zealand tests will be a close encounter.
This biennial tournament, contested between New Zealand and Australia, will be held at the North Harbour Hockey Stadium during the week 6-11 May 2013. Three tests will be played by each of the ten age divisions – M40+, M45+, M50+, M55+, M60+, W35+, W40+, W45+, W50+, W55+ – over the course of the week. A new division in 2013, Women’s 60+, will have its own separate competition running simultaneously with the TTC.
The results of the 2013 National Masters Hockey Tournament can be viewed here.
