National award for Timaru officer
A Timaru police officer has taken out a national award for his dedication to sport.
Constable Ben Grant played his first game of hockey at the age of 3.
Since then, he has gone on to coach junior and senior team to national tournament titles, has played senior hockey, and has umpired a test match between New Zealand and Korea.
He was recognised for his efforts when he was presented with the New Zealand Police Sport Official of the Year award during a ceremony in Timaru on Wednesday.
Colleagues, family and friends, and some of the young players he coached gathered to watch national manager of police sport Dave Gallagher present Grant with the award.
Gallagher talked about Grant’s long list of achievements, from coaching the South Canterbury Under 18 team to serving as a national match director. He also coached the South Canterbury boys’ hockey team to their first ever title at the under 15 national championships in Wellington last year.
Given the ‘‘huge’’ commitment being involved with sport at that level took, Grant’s achievements were pretty impressive, Gallagher said.
Grant was modest about the award, but acknowledged that it was ‘‘really cool’’ to be recognised.
‘‘Everything we do as coaches, umpires, we don’t do it for the recognition,’’ he said. ’’It means more for everyone I work with.’’
‘‘It’s a really, really small part of a massive group that makes sport work.’’
He also thanked the police for giving him the flexibility to be able to work around his sporting commitments. Those commitments quickly became apparent, with Grant having to dash away from his own award ceremony to attend a hockey tournament in Oamaru yesterday.