Underwater hockey: Difference between revisions

Two players competing for the puck at GB Student Nationals, Bangor

Underwater hockey (UWH; also called Octopush) is a global non-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into goals.

Equipment

Stick pushing puck

Annotated Player
1. snorkel and mouthguard 2. hat with earguards 3. mask 4. fins 5. stick 6. puck 7. glove

Players wear a diving mask, swimfins and a snorkel for play. Safety gear includes ear protection usually in the form of a water polo cap, a mouthguard, and a glove for the playing hand (to protect against pool-bottom abrasion and, in some designs, knuckle protection against puck impact). Players may choose to wear a protective glove on both hands as the current rules permit a player to switch the stick between hands mid-play.

The stick is relatively short (according to recent rules, not more than 350mm in length, including the handle) and is coloured white or black to indicate the player's team. In tournament play, the colour of the stick and cap are randomly assigned to each team before every game.

The puck is approximately the size of an ice hockey puck but is made of lead or similar material (Adult size weighs 3 lb (1.3-1.5 kg), Junior 1 3/4 lb (800-850 gm)) and is surrounded by a plastic covering, which is usually matched to the pool bottom to facilitate good grip on the stick face while preventing excessive friction on the pool bottom. The puck's weight brings it to rest on the pool bottom, though can be lifted during passes.

The goals (or 'gulleys') are three metres in width and are sited at opposite ends of the playing area on the pool bottom.

Play

Two teams of up to ten players compete, with six players on each team in play at once. The remaining four players are continually substituted into play from a substitution area, which may be on deck or in the water outside the playing area, depending on tournament rules.

Before the start of play the puck is placed in the middle of the pool, and the players wait in the water, touching the wall above the goals they are defending. At the start-of-play signal (usually a buzzer or a gong), in-play members of both teams are free to swim anywhere in the play area and try to score by manoeuvring the puck into the opponents' goal. Play continues until either a goal is scored, and players return to their wall to start a new point, or a break in play is signalled by a referee (whether due to a foul, a time-out, or the end of the period of play).

Going for strike

A typical playing formation is the 3-3 (three offensive players or forwards, and three defensive players or backs). Other options include 2-3-1 (i.e., two forwards, three midfielders, and a back), 1-3-2, or 2-2-2. As important to tournament teams' formation strategy is the substitution strategy - substitution errors might result in a foul (too many players in the play area) or a tactical blunder (too few defenders in on a play).

There are a number of penalties described in the official underwater hockey rules, ranging from the use of the stick against something (or someone) other than the puck, playing or stopping the puck with something other than the stick, and "blocking" (interposing one's self between a team-mate who possesses the puck and an opponent; one is allowed to play the puck, but not merely block opponents with one's body). If the penalty is minor, referees award an advantage puck - the team that committed the foul is pushed back 3 metres from the puck, while the other team gets free possession. For major penalties, such as a dangerous pass (.e.g., at or near an opponent's head) or intentional or repeated fouls, the referees may eject players for a specified period of time or the remainder of the game. A defender committing a serious foul sufficiently close to his own goal may be penalized by the award of a penalty shot, or a penalty goal to the fouled player's team.

Games consist of two halves, typically ten to fifteen minutes in length (depending on tournament rules; 15 minutes at world championship tournaments) and a short half time interval. At half time the two teams switch ends.

Referees

Refereeing the game are two (or three) water referees (i.e. in the pool with full snorkelling gear, and wearing a distinctive cap, gloves and t-shirt) to observe and referee play at the pool bottom, and one or more poolside deck referees to track time (both in the period and for each ejected player), maintain the score, and call fouls (such as excessive number of players in play, failure to start a point from the end of the playing area, or another foul capable of being committed at or noticed at the surface). The deck (chief) referee responds to hand signals given by the water referees to start and stop play, including after an interruption such as a foul or time-out.

The Official Rules are available in PDF form without charge and define (with illustrations) a valid goal, the fouls and signals, and the dimensions of the playing area, sticks, and goals. The rules can be found at www.thewaa.org

Spectators

Octopush contest seen from the surface, at Crystal Palace Pool, London

Underwater Hockey is not very spectator friendly. Since the action is all below the surface, one must enter the water to get the full effect of the game. Spectators may either try on fins, a snorkel, and mask and enter the pool for a view of the playing area, or take advantage of the work of underwater videographers who have recorded major tournaments. Major tournaments often have closed circuit live tv for the spectators which makes it a very exciting spectator sport. Organizers of major tournaments are usually the only contacts for acquiring recorded underwater hockey footage, and although no official worldwide repository exists for recorded games, there are many websites and instructional DVDs.

Filming the games is challenging even for the experienced videographer, as the players' movements are fast and there are few places on the surface or beneath it which are free from their seemingly frenzied movements. Games are often played width-wise across a 50 metre pool to provide spaces in between simultaneous games for player substitutes, penalty boxes, coaches and camera crews. However, research and development of filming techniques is ongoing.

High level World Championship events, in recent years, have attempted video coverage of the games. Recent attempts during both the 2006 World Championship in Sheffield, England and the 2008 World Championship in Durban, South Africa even included online streamed footage, whilst the 2008 European Championship in Istanbul, Turkey had excellent video coverage but no live streaming.

this sport is gay and dosent exist

Governing Bodies

Considerable political turmoil within Underwater Hockey's world governing body, CMAS, came to a head soon after the 2006 World Championship, resulting in the CMAS Underwater Hockey Commission members resigning en masse and soon thereafter forming an alternative 'world governing body' solely for the sport of UWH, known as the World Aquachallenge Association (WAA), and which was officially ratified at the 1st WAA World Championship in March 2008. Consequently, from this point the UWH community has two world governing bodies :

1) CMAS, which continues to organise international competition in the form of the World Games (although mainly euro-centric) in alternate years. These are intended to be multi-disciplinary events to include UWH and other sports under their governance, such as finswimming, free-diving, underwater orienteering etc. The 1st World Games was held in Bari, Italy in 2007 and the 2nd was scheduled for Tunisia in 2009 but was cancelled and has now taken place in the form of an UWH-only event in Kranj, Slovenia in August 2009, confusingly billed as a World Championship but with only one non-European country competing (South Africa); France won the Open division while Great Britain took the Women's title. In the years in between World Games CMAS holds Zone Championships (e.g. the 12th European Championship in Istanbul, Turkey in 2008) which are intended to be seeding competitions to decide which countries compete at the World Games the following year. CMAS currently actively supports only Elite level competition.

2) WAA, has continued with the original World Championship series held in alternate years with its 1st (renumbered - it would have been the CMAS 15th) being in 2008 in Durban, South Africa and the 2nd scheduled for Medellin, Colombia in August 2010. WAA actively supports not only Elite level competition, but also Youth (Under-18; previously Under-19) and Masters (Ladies 32+, Open 35+) levels too.

Either due to a lack of constructive dialogue or deliberate attempts to sabotage the other's competition, the World (WAA) and European (CMAS) events following the split were held over exactly the same period in 2008 a continent apart. Unfortunately this dichotomy of championships coupled with the possibility of future CMAS sanctions has already led to many European countries being forced to choose which competition to send their team to. As a result, neither competition in 2008 was as well attended as has been the case in previous years, nor as competitive. In 2009 the new President of the CMAS UWH Commission is making brave attempts to consolidate UWH at international levels by trying to bring CMAS and WAA together again but would appear to be battling internal CMAS politics as well as a jaundiced UWH community, at least as far as CMAS is concerned.

Even more unfortunately, it would seem that the 2nd WAA World Championship scheduled for August 2010 in Medellin, Colombia is unlikely to have only representative national teams from competing countries, since it is being promulgated that 'anyone' may compete (but not necessarily win) and that individuals may turn up and be allocated to a team, or indeed that 'barbarian' teams may enter! Equally perversely, the 13th CMAS European Championship held in Oporto, Portugal in April 2010, far from being a "European" championship had teams representing both Colombia and South Africa competing there. Popular opinion in the UWH community is that both WAA and CMAS should get their respective houses in order, and communicate with each other to avoid having major zone or world championship events in the same years as each other, to the detriment of the progress of the sport in general.

On the other hand, club-based UWH at an international level would appear to be thriving without the input of either CMAS or WAA (or maybe because of it), especially in Europe where well-organised international tournaments (such as at Breda in Holland, České Budějovice in the Czech Republic, or Malaga in Spain) are regularly attended by a range of club teams from across the continent.

See also

• Underwater football
• Underwater rugby
• Underwater ice hockey

External links

• Official WAA web page
• British Octopush Association
• Video of an underwater hockey game USA vs. South Africa at Archive.org