Youngsters off to Olympic event
Nerves, excitement as Northlanders gear up for big event in Hawaii
TAdam Pearse
he dream of representing New Zealand at an Olympic event becomes a reality for four Northlanders in July. Chay Edwards, 14, Zane Cooper, 13, Aaron Riddell, 12, and Emily Freakley, 12, will all fly to Hawaii to compete in the Inline Hockey Junior Olympics in the 14-and-under and 12-and-under grades.
Inline hockey, a byproduct of ice hockey, is played on a plastic-tiled rink atop a concrete floor which allows the puck to glide along the surface. Teams of five, including a goaltender, play each other in what is a high-paced and competitive sport.
Fellow Northlander Sydney Bavastro, 16, will also compete overseas in July, in the junior men’s grade at the World Roller Games in Barcelona.
All five of Northland’s prodigies have competed at national club championships in their age grade, as well as represented the northern region in their age grade at interregional championships.
Bavastro has already represented New Zealand in tournaments around the world but the national selection will be an exciting start for the others.
“I’m pretty nervous because I haven’t been there before but it’s all pretty exciting,” Cooper said.
The goaltender needed to qualify against nine other goalies to be selected for the national side. Cooper put his success down to starting earlier and focusing on training.
“I started when I was about 7 and I think that probably helped.
“It’s taken a lot of training, we do it about three times a week,” he said.
Cooper hoped all his preparation would help them compete well against formidable teams from countries such as the United States, Mexico, Canada and Australia.
His father and captain of Northland inline hockey club the Stingrays, Carl Cooper, said he was ecstatic when he found out some of the club’s members would be attending global tournaments.
Once a big sport in the 1990s, Carl Cooper said inline hockey had faded until the past five years when the game took on a huge growth in numbers.
“It has always been a minority sport so for these guys to be selected out of about 1000 registered players in New Zealand, it’s pretty good.”
Apart a rink in Kerikeri, there were five other locations where club members often travelled for tournaments. Trips as far away as New Plymouth and Wellington were a regular occurrence for the Northland club, which was quickly building in numbers.
“When we joined about five years ago there was about half-a-dozen kids and now we have over 50 members, but it is a big time and cost commitment when you get to the higher levels.”
Safety gear for a goalie could be as expensive as $5000, but the Northland club helped reduce costs by supplying all safety gear to their juniors until they wanted to buy their own.
“I think that’s the main reason why we’ve got such a big growth in the club, because we’ve been putting all the funds straight back into gear for junior development.”
It seemed Northlanders had a skill for inline hockey, with past members of the club having represented New Zealand in the junior and senior women’s team as well as under-21 sides. Carl said this new crop of players had the ability to go far.
“We do find it attracts a lot of kids that don’t fit into other mainstream sports but it’s great because you need to have not only a lot of skating skill but you also need to fit in as a team.”
For those interested in getting involved, the club does skate skills sessions from 4.30pm to 5.30pm and social skating from 6pm to 8.30pm on Friday during school terms.