Lauren Penny, former International Hockey Player (South Africa), Performance Coach, and founder of hockeyperformanceacademy.com has compiled some interesting and FUN Field Hockey Facts to test your knowledge.
FACT 1 At the London 2012 Olympics, hockey was the 3rd most spectated sport
FACT 2 Celebrities Emma Watson, Kate Middleton, Jennifer Lawrence and Heath Ledger all played hockey
Emma Watson (from Harry Potter) playing hockey in college
FACT 3 Men’s hockey has the fastest swing speed of any sport reaching around 103 miles per hour
FACT 4 Hockey was originally called shinty
An original shinty stick
FACT 5 Hockey is the 2nd most played sport in the world (after football/soccer)
FACT 6 Hockey is one of the oldest team sports in the world, dating back nearly 3000 years to the Greek classical era. Modern day hockey was first played in Scotland in 1700’s
A form of hockey played in the Greek era
FACT 7 The British army helped spread hockey throughout the British Empire which explains its popularity in countries like India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand.
FACT 8 Hockey is played by over 3 million people across over 100 different countries
A map of all the hockey confederations around the world
FACT 9 Women’s Hockey was only included into the Olympics in 1980 with Zimbabwe winning the first ever Olympic Gold medal
Here is a video of Zimbabwe women winning the Olympic final against India in 1980:
FACT 10 India has won the most Olympic Gold medals with a total of 8, winning 6 consecutive Gold’s between 1928-1956.
Video of India men beating Spain 4-3 in the 1980 Olympic final in 1980
Lauren Penny specialises in the mental & physical aspects of sport. Passionate about getting the most out of hockey players by teaching them how to be more confident, manage emotions in sport and how to become fitter, stronger and faster for hockey. Mindset training & sport specific conditioning is often overlooked and misunderstood, but it is in fact the biggest difference between reaching your full potential and not.
See more at: http://hockeyperformanceacademy.com
