Hockey skills

Hockey is a sport played in the winter.  It can be played on many different places such as hockey grass, ice and turf.  There are 11 players on the field for one team.  You need to wear a mouthguard on turf but on ice you need shin pads, mouth guard and other things for safety.   There are 4 positions on a hockey team: forwards, fullbacks, midfielders and one goalie.  There is also a penalty stroke line in front of the goal, there is two sidelines and one centre line.  The whole field is 100 yards.  You need a candy cane shaped stick and a hockey ball.  How many teams compete in the festival of hockey in Hawkes Bay ?   

There are two main parts in hockey blocking and striking but today I am going to talk about blocking.  Blocking is when you stop the ball with the candy cane shaped stick.

Firstly, you need to keep your eye on the ball when blocking.  If you do not keep your eye on the ball you could miss the ball and do all kinds of things like hurt someone with a hockey stick or injury yourself badly.  Also the opposition could steal the ball and score.

Secondly, you need to have your stick straight on and your body behind the stick. You need to hold the stick in a special way: you need to have your left hand up the top making sure you see your knuckles and your right hand just below the grip making sure you can see your fingers.  You need to have your stick facing to the flat side so the ball does not flick off and go the the other team otherwise the other team will score. Also you need to make sure body comes behind the stick.

Finally, you need to give a little. When you give a little you push your body back a bit and push your stick forward a bit. If you don’t give a little your stick may snap in half.

The answer to my initial question that I asked in my intro is 6 teams including the Black sticks, the teams are New Zealand, China, Korea,   

Argentina, Japan and Australia. Hockey is are very cool sport.

By Hugh.