A fight at the bottom of the pool - underwater hockey

Circling around diving topics, a sport came across my desk today that is unusual and a cause for widespread surprise – underwater hockey. “Yes, there is such a thing”, “no, I’m not joking”. – these are the answers to the most common questions on first contact with this unusual and still little known in our country discipline. Although the subject may seem new, unfortunately it is only for us, the people living on the Vistula. The rest of the world, or at least part of it, has known and continued the hockey tradition since it appeared in 1954.

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As is usually the case in life, nothing comes into being at once and from nothing. Nor did such a great sport as underwater hockey appear suddenly and in its current form. It all began, as in many cases, with boredom. If we add winter time and people who were crazy enough to dive back in the 1950s, we can be sure that something original, distinctive, astonishing and above all… fun will come out of this mix!

The year 1954 in England marks the birth of underwater hockey. A group of English divers, wishing to keep fit also in winter, started to play matches of a game they called “octopush”. As the months passed, spring came and good diving conditions returned. So there was no need to continue training in the pool. It turned out, however, that the “octopush” began to live its own life. Underwater fun gained huge popularity and transformed into an independent creation, which over the years evolved and grew to become an independent discipline, bringing more and more people together at the bottom of swimming pools all over the world.

At the present moment underwater hockey is a thriving, well-organised and systematised sport. From the British Isles it has reached the continental part of Europe and further to North America, Australia and South America. There are professional leagues in the USA, Canada, France and the Czech Republic and over a hundred clubs in Paris alone! It is also played in Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Colombia.

The rules of hockey are quite simple, even though the regulations of the championships (World and European Championships) are quite a hefty tome. What we should know at the beginning to start playing hockeysub is that it is a non-contact sport, played in a pool 2-3 metres deep. The game involves two teams of six players and four substitute players each. The game itself lasts 30 minutes, divided into two halves lasting 15 minutes each, during which two substitutions can be made. In the event of a draw, the match is extended by two 5-minute overtime periods, in which the game continues until the first goal is scored, thus determining the winner.

During the game itself, the basic equipment of each player is a diving ABC, a cap, a protective glove and a stick. Teams play with a puck weighing about 1.5 kg, where the goal is to put it in the opponent’s goal, just like in ice hockey. The goals are usually made of stainless steel, are 3m wide and are placed on opposite sides of the pool. The teams start each action from under the wall where their goal is located and swim to the puck placed in the middle of the pool. The team that intercepts the puck first launches an attack. The proper course of the game is supervised by five referees. The main referee at the side of the pool, two water referees, the scorekeeper and the timekeeper.

The top-level competitions are supervised and organised by the Underwater Hockey Commission of the World Confederation of Underwater Activities. World and European Championships are held every two years. The first world tournament was held in Vancouver in 1980 and ended with a victory for the hosts. 15 years later the first championships on the old continent took place and here too the hosts, the Dutch, won. The most successful teams are still the Canadians and the Australian team – 3 triumphs each, followed by France, USA and the Netherlands. It is worth mentioning that in August 2010. It is worth mentioning that at the World Championships held in Medellin in August 2010, the home team won gold in both men’s and women’s classification.

In Poland, unfortunately, despite attempts to root the sport, underwater hockey is still in its embryonic stage and it will probably be some time before we have the conditions for this sport that other countries have. In our country, it is still just a hobby for groups of enthusiasts who devote their time and resources to create the best possible playing conditions. Let us hope that, as it usually happens in nature, a drop will break the rock…