25 June 2010

JONATHAN COOK
Talking Hockey

FRIDAY saw the conclusion of three national hockey tournaments that have taken place in Pietermaritzburg over the past fortnight.

The South Africa U16 and SA U18 Boys' Interprovincial hockey tournaments at Maritzburg College 's Pape's Astro and the AB Jackson Greenfields Turf, and the South African Country Districts' Interprovincial Women's Tournament at GHS's Greenfields Turf saw 52 teams playing in the Kwa Zulu Natal capital.

Around 1 000 hockey players, managers, coaches, umpires, national selectors and other officials from all over the country plus many more spectators gathered in PMB, bringing much-needed revenue to the city's coffers and again proving just how suited PMB is to hosting events of this nature.

As a very conservative estimate, bank on R200 per hockey player/official per day over a period of five to six days each and you have in the region of R1 million spent in the KZN capital by players and support staff management on food, travel, accommodation and so on over the past fortnight.

And then there has been – on my and others' observation – about half the hockey parents plus siblings watching. That's about 3 000 supporters spending, at an extremely conservative estimate, around R300 per day on food, travel and accommodation and you are looking at another cool R1 million in the city's coffers.

Two million bucks over the past 10 to 12 days is a nice cash injection into the PMB economy and makes sense of the money that can be made through attracting top hockey tournaments to the city.

And I haven't even mentioned the big SA U13 inter provincial B boys' and girls' hockey festival that was held over three or four days in PMB three weeks ago, and probably doubles the aforementioned income.

The reason I am bringing this up? Simple, really. Apart from the obvious benefits of getting as many players on synthetic turf pitches as possible, there is a monetary benefit that can pay for these hockey pitches over time. Sufficient, that is, to begin to cover the costs of relaying the surfaces come their sell-by date after eight to 10 years.

The perception that hockey is a rich person's sport has value – evidenced by the myriad double cabs, Mercs, Cadillacs and BMW's in the car parks at the three hockey venues over the past 10 to 12 days. In South Africa at least, it is an amateur sport, so players generally have to pay their own way – and with sticks retailing at over R2000 and more for some of the best – it's not cheap.

That said, I know of no needy hockey player who has ever been turned away due to financial constraints – hockey people always make a plan for the less fortunate. And it is this imperative – to take hockey to the masses so as to raise standards – that must drive municipalities in harness with hockey institutions to build more of these hockey turfs. There is no other way to learn the modern game of hockey.

Currently there are around 80 such hockey turfs in SA with a replacement value of approximately R480 million that cater for the 112 000 schoolchildren who play hockey, plus the 8 000 or so club hockey  players, yet the likes of Northern and Southern Cape, Limpopo, Eastern Gauteng and Mpumalanga have just one hockey turf between them.

This has to change if hockey is to become a game for all the people - and in turn raise the standards of the game in SA so we are better able to compete with the world's best.

Imagine if our pool of hockey talent came from 48 million people and not just six million?