Solving the mystery that is field hockey

By John Williams
October 26, 2016

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Video by Emily Janny and John Williams

 

“I know absolutely nothing about it.”

That is the reaction from sophomore education major Victoria Anderson when asked what she knew about the sport of field hockey. Anderson was not the only person asked this seemingly easy question. In fact, none of the random people asked had a different answer.

So, why does this game that has been around since the middle ages not resonate, and in turn confuse so many people, even with 650,000 high schoolers signed up to play the sport in the U.S. according to the National Federation of Schools?

“Probably because it is not something that girls are getting exposed to in grade school,” Cabrini University Field Hockey coach Jackie Neary said. “I mean now it is, but for years the majority of the girls would grow up playing soccer in the fall. In private schools they usually have it, but now you are starting to see some townships starting to roll it out. I just think it is just not being aware of it,” Neary said.

Senior field hockey forward Taylor Mack said, “There are so many rules in the sport that I don’t even know them all. I think the whole confusion has to do with the whistle blowing so often because of the contact with sticks.”

“There are so many rules from how far down you have to be to how you have to stop the ball in front of a person,” Mack said. “I think that the complexity of the rules could sometimes deter people from giving it a chance, because its stop go, stop go, stop go, but when the game gets going, it is definitely very interesting.”

Field hockey is a game played on a turf field with stick that is about waist high in length. It has two sides, and of those two sides, only the flat side can be used. The hook-like structure that curls up at the end of the stick hits the ball. A team will try to dribble the field hockey ball across the astroterph—think of cradling the puck in ice hockey. The goal of the game is to score more goals then the other team, obviously.

“I think if I were to like (field hockey) to another sport, it would be soccer,” Neary said. “Soccer and field hockey share a lot of the same formations thought patterns and game plans, so they are very similar in that way.”

Mack took this comparison one step forward, “Field hockey is a combination of roller hockey and soccer. The comparison with soccer is they have the same type of positions, both use the same field. The rules are just a bit more complicated,” Mack said.

Field hockey takes skill and coordination, which is another reason the sport can be so exciting to watch. Perhaps even more important is the mental aspect of the game.

“You have to be mentally strong to play this game,” Mack said.” There are so many different concepts that go into field hockey. You have to make sure your feet are still moving if you are in front of someone, all the different types of hits you can make, positioning. I think you definitely have to be mentally strong to play this game because there are gonna be times when you’re gonna whiff, but that just has to go out of your mind and you have to be able to move on to the next play.”

So what is the future of this both mentally and physically taxing game?

“Field hockey is definitely a growing sport in the United States, and it is visible at all levels,” Neary said. To see this statement’s validity, look no further than USA Field Hockey. The USA Field Hockey team has not placed in the Olympic games since 1984, and haven’t finished better than eigth more than once (1996) since.

Even though Team USA did not medal in these past Olympic games in Brazil, they are much more respected than they had been before, after upsetting the second and third ranked teams in the tournament (Argentina and Australia, respectively).

“I think we are getting better and better each year,” Neary said. “There is starting to be a big push to develop at the lower levels, which will help us get better as a country in the future. I think within a few years; I think we could medal.”

Field hockey is a growing sport in this country. Just like soccer, field hockey is a very big sport in foreign countries and just like in soccer, America has not quite warmed up to it yet, although there has been some progress.

 

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John Williams

John is a Sophomore Digitial Communications and Social Media Major at Cabrini College. He is an aspiring sports writer, who also is an editor for BlueLineStation.com. You can catch John's radio show "The Whole 10 Yards" on Fridays from 12-2 on Cavalier Radio, 89.1 WYBF-FM, or online at WYBF.com

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