Hockey Australia recently promoted how both Hockey Victoria and Hockey Queensland have been searching out hockey families of size. These campaigns are ‘fruitful’ as it supports the uniqueness of hockey when compared to other sports as a male and female family sport. Go Hockey News believe Hockey Australia as well as other nations need to run with the baton across the entire nation identifying these great hockey families and using what they find to promote hockey to the community, government and potential sponsors in an endeavour to fully justify investing in the benefits of hockey as a lifelong family sport.
Families like the Aitkenheads (photo above) should be the face of hockey campaigns to draw new participants to the sport. The International performances of our country’s best is critical but so is the second part of Hockey Australia’s mission
For its part, Hockey Australia’s mission will be:
“To encourage, promote, develop and administer hockey at all levels in order to maintain Australian hockey as a world leader and a game for everyone. This will be done through managing Australia’s international high performance program and maximising participation, enjoyment and community profile”
As we embrace this mission with unified country based campaigns devised and led by Hockey Australia we will see hockey benefit greatly. We need only look at the family of Mark Knowles and Jamie Dwyer as examples to observe the power of families playing hockey. Well done Hockey Victoria and Hockey Queensland for starting the ‘ball rolling’.
The following is from Hockey Australia News.
Setting the bar high, Hockey Queensland has launched a ‘get into hockey’ campaign as part of their sign on activities for 2015. Spending considerable time calling every association in Queensland, they managed to source stories of families that have been involved in hockey for generations.
Hockey Victoria has also been busy searching for Victoria’s number one hockey family with their campaign #TheFamilyGame. The Walters family, announced as Victoria’s number one hockey family, have been involved in hockey for over 30 years with the Geelong, Corio and Saints Hockey Clubs.
After a phenomenal response of committed families across Queensland, one family stands out – Queensland’s biggest hockey family above. Hockey in Gladstone is certainly a sport for every member of the family, no matter what age, as depicted by the Aitkenhead family.
Hockey legend and pin up girl; Judy Aitkenhead
Family matriarch, Judy Aitkenhead – who began playing hockey aged 17, retired from the sport at the age of 71 at the end of the 2013 season, and is now a Life Member of the Gladstone & District Hockey Association – without a doubt set the tone for her large family’s hockey-loving ways.
Boasting four daughters, two sons, their respective spouses and twenty-five grandchildren who play or who have played, coached, umpired or otherwise been involved in hockey in Gladstone and wider Queensland, Judy’s family have the sport firmly embedded in their veins.
And, as the 2015 season approaches, another member of the Aitkenhead clan will prepare to pick up a hockey stick for the first time, with new recruit Sophie Aitkenhead preparing to play with Souths Rookey 7’s this year.
Source: Hockey Australia News, Author: Shevaun Sly
