Hockey move wrong?

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 36

Hockey move wrong?

The annual meeting of the Canterbury Hockey Association this year, its eighty-sixth, will not be remembered as one of the more innovative. It was embarrassing enough to have to adjourn the meeting because of the apathetic attitude of clubs who failed to nominate people for the management committee. But before the adjournment the meeting had time to make a decision which it could eventually rue. A motion that Rangiora, the winner of the senior reserve competition last season, be admitted to the senior grade was passed, lifting the number of teams in the grade to 10. It was a decision which appears to have been made with little forethought. The only merit in admitting Rangiora to the senior grade is that it rids the grade of a bye that has been a source of annoyance to senior teams for several years. The standard of senior hockey in Christchurch has been slowly regressing for the past few seasons, and the C.H.A. would have been wiser to investigate ways of reducing the senior competition rather than increasing it. It has been suggested many times in the last few years that the competition should be reduced because there are not sufficient players of senior standard to sustain nine or 10 teams. Initiating the changes however has hot been so easy. None of the clubs want to lose their senior status, thus, voting in a rule that would reduce the number of teams is virtually impossible. The senior clubs argue that they must have an incentive for their young

players progressing through the ranks, and that that incentive is an eventual place in the senior team. Unfortunately because the clubs will not budge the sport in Canterbury is already beginning to suffer. Six, or even eight teams, in the senior grade would provide a more interesting and intense championship. It would also weed out many of the players who are obviously not of senior standard. Representative players tend to allow bad habits to creep into their play in club

matches when they have little pressure on them. Consequently when they advance to representative or international matches they find it difficult to adjust to the greater pace, and the need for technical faults to be kept to a minimum. Senior hockey matches in Christchurch attract only a handful of true-blue supporters. Until there is an improvement in the skill level of the majority of senior games the sport will not manage to attract its own players, let alone members of the public. KEVIN TUTTY