Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
A great sport to play, really exciting and enjoyable |
| Disadvantages: |
Injuries do sometimes occur, and they are usually painful, some equipment expensive |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
Ah, hockey. The sport that if you told most people you play it, you'd get a reply something like, "but that's a woman's sport." And I have to admit it, before I started playing, I used to think the same. I couldn't see the attraction of running around with a funny shaped stick trying to hit a solid ball. I used to think that it had to be much harder than football, because the goals are smaller to score in, the ball is smaller to hit, and you can't use your feet at all. After three years of playing hockey, my opinion has changed an unbelievable amount!
The Pitch
In a lot of ways, the pitch in hockey is very similar to a regular football pitch. There is a centre circle and centre spot, and the pitch is divided into two halves. The pitch is usually around the same length and width of a football pitch. There is also a penalty spot at either end of the pitch, but the one main difference between a hockey pitch and a football pitch is the goalkeeper's area. In football it is a rectangle, and the keeper cannot handle the ball outside of this area. In hockey, it is a semi-circle, with the straight part of the semi circle been the goal line, and the sidelines to the side of the goal. This semi-circle doesn't just affect the goalkeeper in hockey, it affects the entire opposition team. See about this in the rules section. There are two types of pitches you can play on. You can play on a grass pitch, although these are quite rare, and private teams or professionals usually play on these, and most of the time, professionals sometimes play on the alternative pitch. The other type of pitch is an astro-pitch, which is used for hockey mainly because you have much more chance of the pitch been flatter with less bumps on a well-built astro-turf pitch, and they are also much cheaper to maintain. I've never played on a grass hockey pitch, so I cannot say what it is like, but there is certainly nothing wrong with playing on an astro-turf pitch!!
The Rules
There are a hell of a lot of rules in hockey. They are quite easy to remember, but much harder to avoid during a match.
· The main rule in hockey is that you cannot use your feet at any point during the match, (unless of course you are a goalkeeper). If you are an outfield player, and the ball makes contact with your feet, it will be a free hit, (equivalent to a free kick in football) at the place at where the ball hit your foot.
· Another main rule of hockey is that you can only use one side of your hockey stick. The side you can use is the flat side of the hockey stick, not the rounded side that also has the bulk of the hook of a hockey stick. If the ball is touched by the wrong wide of the stick a free hit is given
· You cannot body check other players, which means you can not just run in front of an opposition player, and then just stop dead to block their path
· You cannot stop the ball from going into the goal with you foot unless you are the goalkeeper. If this foul is committed, you may receive a red card and be sent off, and a penalty flick will be given. A penalty flick is the equivalent of a penalty kick in football. In a penalty flick situation, the ball must be flicked towards the goal, not slapped or hit.
· If the ball is hit into the air, either by accident or on purpose, the ball cannot come into contact or go dangerously close to an opposition player, or it will be a foul.
· You cannot stick tackle opposition players, (deliberately hit other player's sticks with your stick)
· If the ball goes behind the by-line, (lines to the side of the goal) off a defender's stick or goalkeeper, a long corner is given. A long corner is taken off the side line, near to the corner of the pitch
· If a foul is committed inside the goalkeeper's semi-circle or if the defending team commits a particularly bad foul in the defending quarter of the field, a short corner is given. A short corner is a corner which is taken closer to the goal than a long corner. Up to five defenders including the goalkeeper can position themselves behind the back line, and this includes inside and outside of the goal. The rest of the defenders have to stand behind the half way line before the penalty corner is taken. The player who takes the penalty corner needs to push the ball to one of the other striking players that need to stand outside the semi-circle till after the ball has left the semi-circle. After the ball has left the semi-circle, the ball can then be brought back into the semi-circle and a shot on goal can be taken. The defenders on the line can only come back into the pitch once the short corner has been taken.
· If the ball goes past one of the two touch lines of the pitch, (the long side lines of the rectangle pitch), then the ball goes to the team which the ball didn't come off last, the same as a throw-in in football, only the ball is hit back in off the floor. When a hit-in is being taken, the players on the same team can stand as close as they want to where the hit is being taken, but opposition players have to stand at least five yards away. The same rule applies for free hits and long corners.
· There is no offside in hockey, so you can stand anywhere on the pitch without being penalised.
· A team has 11 players on the team, and the team can have 5 subs
· A match is two halves of 35 minutes, with a 5 minute break after the first half for the teams to discuss their performance with their manager/coach
· The referee can give out three different types of cards to player's who commit offences during a match. A green card is a warning. A yellow card is a temporary suspension, which is just like rugby, a time out. It is usually for a minimum of five minutes, and then the player can come back on again when the umpire says so. And then there is the red card. If this is shown to a player, they are permanently removed from the team for the rest of the game.
The Sticks
So, the sticks, the main piece of equipment. Without the stick, hockey wouldn't be hockey. Every player on a hockey team needs to have a stick during a match, and they cannot play if they do not have one, (obvious really)! Sticks are usually between 36 inches and 38 inches long. Which size you have depends on your height, the taller you are, the longer stick you will need. A hockey stick has two main parts, these are a head and a handle. Sticks are mainly made of manufactured man-made materials, these sticks are called composite sticks. Cheaper and older sticks are made of wood, but they much less quality compared to the newer composite sticks. The stick has a 'hook' at the bottom of the stick, where you hit the ball. If you don't know what the 'hook' looks like, it is basically in the shape of a 'J'. Another feature of hockey sticks is the bend. Nearly all hockey sticks now have a degree of bend in the stick between the handle and the hook. The larger the bend in a hockey stick, the more power and control you will have over the ball. Although there is a limit of how large a bend you are allowed to have. Your stick is allowed to have a 25mm bend in it, but any higher and the stick becomes illegal, and you will not be able to play with it at a professional level, because the amount of power you can get with an illegal stick if you are really good is deadly! And finally the last feature is the handle. The handle is really just a cylinder piece of wood, much like a cricket bat handle only thinner. There are many different varieties of handle grips you can get, from many brands. A very popular brand with hockey players is Grays. Grays make a lot of different type and style of hockey sticks, ranging in price. But there are also a lot of other makes of hockey stick, such as Kookaburra and Slazenger.
The hockey balls
Hockey balls are made of solid plastic and come in many colours. There are also two forms they can come in, dimpled and smooth. Many brands make hockey balls, such as Slazenger, Kookaburra and Grays.
Other Equipment needed
There are a few other pieces of equipment that are optional and some that are compulsory. Shin-pads are one of the compulsory pieces of equipment that are needed. Without playing in shin-pads, you are open to injuries that you would not get while wearing shin-pads. They are one of the most important pieces of equipment. There are also a couple pieces of optional equipment. You can wear gum shields to protect yourself from lifted balls heading towards you mouth, although these are rare for starting players. Another piece of optional equipment are hockey gloves. You can buy right and left-handed gloves, and they are different to any other types of sports gloves you can buy.
Hockey gloves fit very snugly around the hands. They usually have a sticky leather palm to give good grip. They have a nice foamy inside, and they usually cut away at the end of the fingers, and there is usually a hole in the palm for the thumb to fit through. On the back of the hand, there are different shaped high-density foam pads depending on the type of glove. The gloves protect your hands from knocks from other sticks and the ball. And the final piece of equipment that a player might need is a hockey stick bag. A hockey stick bag can have many compartments to store hockey sticks, balls and other equipment that I have mentioned above.
Injuries
This part of the review is part and parcel of the sport, and there are many different varieties of injuries you can get. There are of course the normal injuries you can get in any sports, such as pulled, torn and strained muscles, and falling on an astro-turf pitch can cause some grazes because of the rough material that the pitches are made of. But there are also other injuries that can occur, and these all occur by getting hit by a stick. You can get bruises, sometimes cuts can occur depending on the angle the stick hits you and where it hits you. There are also rather dangerous injuries that occur when a stick hits you around you head. Chipped teeth can occur, and other injures might occur when you are hit in the face. I was on the receiving end of an injury to the face a few years ago, when a player attempted to hit the ball, missed and his momentum made his stick continue swinging, and I was behind this player, and I received a nasty blow just above my eye. If the stick had been a few centimetres shorter, or if the players' arms had been a bit shorter, I could have been permanently blinded in my left eye, but instead (thankfully), I ended up with a really nasty hole just above my eye, inside my eye-brow where blood was flowing for a while after the blow, but I am here to tell the tale with a scar in my eye-brow and a part of my eye-brow missing. These injuries are quite rare, and hopefully if you decide to play hockey or already do, you will never encounter one of these injuries!
Overall
So, overall, I think that hockey is a great sport to learn. It is very exciting to play and watch, and very enjoyable to play and watch. I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking of taking up a new sport. I admit that parts of the sport can be expensive, but if you look around, you can find a cheaper price for parts of the sport! So, if you tempted to give it a go after reading this review, definitely go for it! And if you don't enjoy, no matter, you have given it a go, but if you do, enjoy your hockey playing!!!!
<Thanks for reading>
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