Many people would know SportsLink International as a Hockey Australia sponsor and provider of tours to follow the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos around the world. Having first become a sponsor in 2004, they have recently extended their current deal to the end of 2016 to include the Rio Olympics amongst other events
Founder and Managing Director Paul Kelly has been involved in the sport as a player, coach and administrator for nearly 30 years. The company was founded in 1998 as a player management business, and quickly established a coaching business in 2000, conducting clinics around the country. Over the next 10 years, they grew to be the largest coaching business in the country, running clinics right around Australia, using the national players as coaches, including current Hockeyroos coach Adam Commens who worked for the company over a number of years. Since 2010 however, the focus has mainly been on tours.
Their first tour was the Mens World Cup in Kuala Lumpur in 2002, with 30 people on that tour, featuring triple Olympian Stephen Davies as the Tour Leader. That has grown to 250 people in Holland for the World Cup and over 1000 expected to be part of our group in Rio for the Olympics in 2016 across all of their sports
The business has now expanded beyond hockey and the portfolio of sports now includes Hockey, Rowing, Water Polo, Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer, Golf, Horse Racing, Baseball, Softball, Sailing, MMA and Rugby, with a number of others in the pipeline. Many of these includes partnerships with national sporting organisations
“Despite this, Hockey will always be a priority sport for us. As well as our partnership with Hockey Australia, we now are also official partners with Hockey New Zealand and in discussions with a number of international federations including the USA, South Africa, China, Japan, Korea, Spain, Holland & Belgium”
Many of the people who travel with us are family and friends of the players, so our focus is simply to provide an organised and cost-effective way for everyone to attend the events together. There is a lot of time spent away from watching the sport, so this way people get to meet other supporters and enjoy their trip with other people. A lot of people have become great friends from coming on our trips.
Having attended so many tournaments in the past 13 years, there are a few special memories that stand out.
“Being there in Athens when the Kookaburras won their first ever Olympic Gold Medal was an incredible experience. The recent World Cup in The Hague was also amazing and without doubt the best hockey event that has ever been run. The Dutch do a hockey event like no-one else”
While some people would consider travelling the world attending sporting events as a dream job. “The events are great to go to, but it is really the people and the friendships you make along the way that are the real highlight for me. Thankfully, most of the people that travel with us are great to deal with and are there to enjoy themselves. We are just helping them to do that”.
As a passionate supporter, leading tour groups has resulted in some interesting moments:
“After the Kookaburras won gold in Athens, I climbed up the big fence behind the goals with an inflatable kangaroo and Australian flag. I was sitting up there, about 10m off the ground before they did the medal ceremony and a couple of Greek policemen came and told me to get down. I figured I was going to get arrested, so I just stayed up there. After about 10 minutes, they just walked off, so I got down and ran back into the crowd. Someone challenged me to do the same when we were in The Hague this year when the Kookaburras won, but I have a bit more sense now.”
While that experience was deliberate, other situations are not so fondly remembered. “Getting locked out of your hotel room and having to go down to reception naked is not just something that happens in the movies”.
I was in Malaysia to arrange our first ever tour and was staying at the hotel we had booked. Let’s just say a combination of jetlag, a few beers and the bathroom door being next to the door out into the hallway wasn’t a good combination!! I had a meeting with the hotel manager the next morning and was worried that they would recognise me off CCTV footage, but luckily that didn’t happen and it ended up OK. I haven’t been back to the hotel though.
Looking forward, the Rio Olympics in 2016 is the key focus for the business. “Rio will be a great event. There are certainly some issues, as there are at all Olympics, but they always have a special feel about them and Rio is a spectacularly beautiful place.”
As well as supporter tours, SportsLink International has also started offering tours to clubs and school teams who want to travel and play games in various countries. “To go and play in another country is a great experience and is a huge motivator for players who want to get better and reach the next level. We have a network of agents all around the world to look after our teams and we try and plan it around FIH events, to allow the players to see the top teams in action as well. We are about to release a trip to NZ in April and one to Europe in July which will include a tournament in Amsterdam, then meeting the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras at the World League in Belgium.
We are also working with Hockey Australia to put together some options around National Championships each year to give travelling families better options, plus have plans for the Hockey India League and Euro Hockey League in the future. We are also planning some our own events in the next couple of years
2015 Hockey Tours
- Indoor World Cup – Leipzig, Germany
- Hawkes Bay Festival – Napier, NZ
- World League Semi Finals – Antwerp, Belgium
- Oceania Cup – New Plymouth, NZ
- AHL Finals – Sydney & Darwin
- Australian Masters Games – Adelaide
For information on any of SportsLink International’s upcoming tours, you can check out their new website at www.sportslinkinternational.com or follow them on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/sportslinkint
Twitter https://twitter.com/sportslinkint
