Hockey star up for award at last
It should be no surprise that hockey star Anita McLaren is in the running for the Nelson Sports Awards.
After all, she is New Zealand’s all-time leading goalscorer, having found the back of the net 96 times across 247 international appearances, and has been a key figure for the Black Sticks since making her debut in 2009.
Those achievements are enough to make her one of the region’s greatest sports stars.
McLaren was born in Nelson, went to Waimea College, and has always considered Nelson to be her hometown.
She even had this to say after beating Argentina at Saxton Turf last year: ‘‘It’s awesome to play at home, it’s where I grew up, it’s where it all started [for me] pretty much, so to come back here is such an honour.’’
So when you take all of that in, it makes you wonder why she was deemed ineligible for the Nelson Sports Awards in previous years.
Each nominee must meet one of three criteria to be eligible. They must have either lived in Nelson for at least six months of the qualifying period, represented Nelson in their chosen sport during the qualifying period or be commonly acknowledged as a Nelsonian ‘‘although not regularly resident in the region due to the demands of their international sporting career’’.
It seems the main issue was the fact McLaren no longer lives in Nelson, although she did only move to Wellington and then Auckland to further her promising career.
Last year’s overall winner, Zoe McBride, does not live in Nelson either. But crucially, she continues to represent the Nelson Rowing Club.
Sport Tasman chief executive Nigel Muir said the organisation kept ‘‘an open mind’’ when it came to policing the third criteria.
So although the rules have not changed, he said Sport Tasman listened to feedback from last year when McLaren was left out.
‘‘From my perspective the key thing is to be open minded and review annually the process and system we’ve got. Is it fair to all athletes? Does it represent what we believe is the highest performance in sport from teams, players and coaches in our region? And do the community on the whole understand it?’’ he said.
‘‘You’ve got a classic example with Liam Squire, who I believe is born in Manawatu.
‘‘Is he a Nelson athlete or a Manawatu athlete? You talk to fans of the Makos and he’s our boy and you talk to people who grew up with him, went to college with him and he’s clearly a Manawatu lad.’’
For the record, Squire has been nominated for Sportsman of the Year, although the frontrunners for that award are Paralympic Games sprinter Liam Malone and Tour de France cyclist George Bennett.
Muir said another issue was the fact McLaren had previously been nominated for the Wellington Sports Awards, having played for Capital in the National Hockey League, and it could get murky when different regions celebrated the same athlete’s success.
But even then she didn’t live in Wellington either.
‘‘You’ve got Anita who we think is ours but she plays all her hockey in Wellington and they believe she’s theirs and nominate her for theirs.
‘‘It’s not just our sports awards that have this challenge, it’s all sports awards across the country where they have this careful balancing act to play.’’
And although McLaren has been nominated at last, she’s no guarantee to win the Sportswoman of the Year award. Her biggest competition could be a familiar face, too.
The 29-year-old appears to be in a head-to-head battle with Black Sticks team-mate Kelsey Smith, the pair helping New Zealand to fourth place at the Olympic Games and to second place at the Hockey World League late last year, although Smith’s crucial goals in a breakout 12-month period could give her the edge.