Australia testing Hockey 9 ‘s
Australia seems to have a thing for playing hockey with 9 players instead of 11. Can’t say I’m a big fan of these experiments. IMHO we’ve got two formats of the game : 11v11 and 6v6 or indoor hockey. These should do…
The traditionalists will favour the 11v11 game. This is the Olympic sport we all know. The indoor hockey or 6v6 game could be useful in those parts of the world where it’s more difficult to play the traditional game, because of infrastructure and the number of players playing the game already most likely.
I see no reason nor benefit for the Hockey 5 the FIH is so keen on testing. And I see no benefit for the test Australian hockey is doing these days with 9-a-side hockey… But maybe that’s just the conservative traditionalist in me talking 😉
Anyway Hockey Australia is making things rather complicated with their newest fling… but they did make a good infographic explaining their intentions:
So to sum up… Each “team or club or organisation” has 3 teams : men + women + mixed. First the men play each other in 4 quarters of 10 minutes. That game is followed by 2 “quarters” (should be halves) of 10 minutes of mixed hockey. Finally the event ends with a women’s game of 4 x 10 minutes again. In between these 3 games there is only a 5 minute break. In between quarters there is a 2 minute break. Each team has max 12 players including 1 goalie. On the pitch they field max 9 players of which 2 have to stay in the attacking half of the pitch at all times. When playing the mixed game each team needs at least 4 of each gender at all times on the pitch and from those 2 staying up front 1 man and 1 woman. During the mixed game the usual penalty corner is replaced by a shoot-out. And to top things off field goals result in 2 points instead of 1 plus the opportunity to gain an extra point with a shoot-out following each field goal. And if that is not strange enough for you already… here comes the cherry on the cake 🙂 Each team will chose before starting the game their “so-called” powerplay quarter in which all of their own PC’s will be converted to a shoot-out and…. all points scored during this powerplay will be counted double.
Talk about simplifying the game of hockey 😉
Anyway… if you’ve got some spare time tomorrow at 8am European time, 7am UK time which would be 6pm Sydney time you can watch this experiment live. There will be some seriously good players participating in this test :
If this test goes well… Hockey Australia would like to implement this for their National Hockey League and they’re calling it the future of Australian hockey. Oh boy… 😉 Gotta love the attitude of always questioning what exists so as not get stuck in habits. But for me this seems a bridge too far for now…
2018-03-07 @ 18:57
Hi Ernst,
like your comments.Agree with you that teams should play indepeneently and not like the cocktail they will mix in Australia.What do you think of taking out the”D” and allow the players to score from any distance?Horst Wein har this idea already many years ago .Of course there are concerns about the injury risk,but it might open ups the game with more scoring and thus making it more attractive to the players and audiences as well.Cheers from Buenos Aires were I live today.Used to play in the top German league with my former club, Club Raffelberg Duisburg,between 1960- 1975 and my opponenets were among others Horst Wein, Michi Peter,Carsten Keller,Uli Vos etc and from Holland Martin Sikking, Hans Litjens, Thies Cruize,Geert Van Eyck ( HC Venlo ) ,Nico Spits and his brother,from Belgium de Kayser etc etc . Our time of course was on natural grass.Uli Voss who was a great friend,god bless him, told me once that what he missed playing on artificial turf was the occasional bump you had on natural grass so as a midfielder or forward you could sneak by your opponennt a bit easier.Playing on artificial turf later I missed the smell of the freshly cut grass before the match,but always enjoying the beer with my opponenets after the match,in Holland occasionally with Sherry ( Zandvoort September Hockey Festival for example ).Greetings from Argentina
2018-03-07 @ 20:13
Hope you’re enjoying Argentina these days Lothar 🙂
Honestly I would not like taking out the D of the equation. For me the game can pretty much stay as is and I would prefer it if FIH & co would focus their innovation more on the ways the game is presented to the fans. Pro commentators, more camera views, more graphics and insights, multiple screens, etc…
But most important of all would be to never change that beer together after the game 😉
2018-03-15 @ 10:40
Just a quick follow up after having seen the game(s) mentioned above. To be honest I did not watch it to the very end… I got half way the mixed game and by then was fed up about wasting my time at this…
I applaud any individual and organisation going out on a limb trying to make things better. But when initiatives taken don’t work out we also need to be honest about this. Yes I was sceptical from the beginning. But tried (!) looking at it with an open mind…
The idea behind all of this was to make the sport more attractive and TV friendly for sports fans who do not have “our” history with the game. So far, so good… But then reality strikes…
The viewing experience (=entertainment) was downright awful. Camera pointed away from the audience in the stands? Not exactly a full stadium… Not enough camera’s and amateur camera men. Most of the game played on a pitch partly in the shadow and partly in a bright sun = bad viewing experience. Poles for flood lighting in the way of the camera. Teams both wearing blue. people on the same team wearing different uniforms? Amateur commentators often interrupted by a stadium speaker. No entertainment before and between quarters and games.
All in all a very amateur feeling to this test and that is not the way to test what you call “the future of hockey”…
As to the changed rules… I liked the concept of two players having to stay upfront. What could be added to this might be a rule about less defenders allowed in their own circle or even defensive quarter. Less crowded circles has some advantages… The idea of mixing games between men, mixed and women has no added value either. I see no advantage of playing 9 players instead of 11. I would consider maybe to forget about quarters or halves and just play 70 minutes, only interrupted by a limited amount of team time-outs to make fatigue a factor again.
Anyway… for me it has convinced me this was a bad idea to start with. Way too complex and not in touch anymore with our rich history of the game.
If you want to get more fans on board with no hockey history, focus on a better media production, be innovative here. Enhance the entertainment in the stadium and make it a true family outing for the day… Simplify the rules instead of inventing new ones all the time.