The world’s oldest sport is underwater hockey . Players need good strength, great swimming skills to be able to play this sport. They should dive deep as long as possible and, particularly if you don’t love hockey, you can’t be an amateur player.
Knowledge of sport of hockey
Hockey is one of the favourite sports, where the two teams use the handle to strike the opposite without the collision of any of the above elements. Hockey is one of the favorite sports with unusual antagonism. The team’s willingness to watch and commitment to win the game together need strong technical players.
Players joining a match of underwater hockey
Studies have shown that a few decades ago hockey was played. Nevertheless, most people who played this sport were elegant and aristocrats, and common citizens have been unaware of the existence of this thrilling sport for a long time.
The most common and talented sport of athletes, who are exceptionally skilled in skating and playing hockey, is hockey played on many different terrains. Ice hockey is played in the cold enough countries to warm, clean, full and protect the ice. And it’s this iconic ice hockey image that inspires and spreads the sport worldwide.
Hockey underwater – A new water sports?
Underwater hockey came into being in a sport-unrelated situation very chancely. Throughout 1950, the United Kingdom Navy also planned a way to train and play ice hockey in the water in order to allow divers to better move and do realistic tasks underwater. In 1954 underwater hockey was formally recognised as a sport, following the establishment of Alan Blake, England’s first Southsea Sub-Aqua Club.
Underwater hockey reacted with excitement by mixing swimming and diving skills in a harmonious manner when playing ice hockey with basketball. All men and women should join hands in this subject and have strong tolerance to the difficulty of breathing underwater for a period of time.
For order to play hockey on the ice an competitor must be a competent swimmer, capable of deep diving and holding a competent breath as long as possible. Phuong, this is a deep dive and long dive swimming match. Whoever is able to dive further will get his team victory.
The ball
Average size, small, flat is the ball used in water hockey, but the weight is enough to fall to the floor. Typically, the body weighs between 1.3 and 1.5 kg for this exciting match.
Sticks for underwater match Hockey
Each part of the match should use a 30 cm hockey stick that isn’t too long to travel quickly and hit the opponent’s net with a puck.
Athletes involved in the game need to learn individual skills for underwater polishing, as water can block the bridge track and the bridge is very huge and requires athletes .. In addition to swimming To be able to fight in good health.
Athletes’ tools
Each athlete who takes part in the match has rubber propellers, bats, helmets and gloves. Each team will be equipped with equipment of the same color to identify underwater.
Specification of water hockey swimming pool
A hockey game with a depth of 2-4 m and a flat lake bed is built at the lake’s surface to ensure that the bridge can be pushed in the direction of polish. The lake normally has to be 25×12 m deep. Each team’s goal is metal that appears to be a tray. It must be made possible for each unit to bring the ball into the dish of the opponent.
> Read more: The origin of hockey: Who Invented Hockey? An interesting story
The rules of underwater hockey
Each team participates in water hockey, including ten athletes, of which six will compete, and the other four will be in reserve. This sport doesn’t discriminate between men and women, as long as your health is fine, it can be played.
All men and women can play underwater hockey
The command to start the game begins with the silver whistle, so both teams players must run into the water, immerse themselves and start serving the lake’s centerline.
An underwater hockey game is beautiful to the participants as well as the spectators watching the match. The athletes will show excellent swimming ability, extremely spectacular serve. Whether winning or losing, all have to climb up, the winning team is definitely up to congratulate each other, and the losing team is emerging to breathe.
The “marine player” struggle
The two teams have waded into the sea, each of which has ten people (6 races, four substitutes) and is known by the color of the bats. The two teams, each one of them is very fascinating and captivates their curiosity.
After a referee signal, 12 diving swimmers from two teams charged face down, ass down, squared the keeper and went over the ball to the tray (considered as a goal in ice hockey or soccer) before hitting the marker.
Underwater hockey strategies “clone” from defensive basketball — 3-3 attack (3 defenders, three assailants) or turn into 3-2-1, 2-3-1, 1-2-3 or 2-2-2 attack. That match has two innings, and the normal periods depend on the rules of every game, ranging from 10-20 minutes.
Tactics hold your breath, the exciting thing about this game. Because the ‘fish players’ usually breathe about 15–30 seconds in water sports before they get to the surface to meet the innate needs of the people and dive back to the bottom to continue their competitive duel.
Funnily enough, the winning team not only celebrated every outcome, but it also had some fun with the losing team. The winning members of the team raced to the surface of the water after the victory, and obviously, the losing team breathed.
The tank is like attacking a jacuzzi on the surface of the water in intense matches, but the odd thing is that the game never causes the player injuries.
A winner team racing to the surface of the water after the victory
The strange and specialized skills that improve water hockey around continents, so much so that the leading organisations have to participate and coordinate world championships.
Cured by the Underwater Hockey Commission (CMAS) and the World Aqua challenge Association (WAA), the sport currently has two bodies represented globally. None of the organisations, though, is giving up, and there have been two separate world championships since 2006.
Water Hockey: A new subject at the 2019 SEA Games
Underwater hockey can be considered as a true novelty in the literal sense of the word “novelty” when it is included in the list of competitions at the 2019 SEA Games. Because, ice hockey or on grass are too familiar with the sports world, but bringing it into the water to compete is indeed rare.
In terms of popularity, underwater hockey is definitely far behind new sports that are also abused by the Philippines such as eSports, Sambo wrestling or Kurash martial arts.
Singaporean players achieving double Gold Medals in SEAgames
According to the documents left behind, images of underwater hockey like swimmers wearing a snorkel and holding short, curved sticks, diving to the bottom of the pool and plunging into a coin-shaped ball while playing similar with “Octopush” – a game invented in the UK in the 1950s to help divers maintain their fitness during winter months. Over time, the game has crept silently from Europe to Asia, but the number of players is extremely small.
Conclusion
In Malaysia, the first water hockey players were students studying abroad in Wales eight years ago and became the domestic pioneer team since 2016. There are about 50 people in Malaysia playing the game. They usually practice 4 times a week, each 2 hours long.
Malaysian underwater hockey players
Although there are only 50 people nationwide who know underwater hockey , Malaysia will send 24 athletes to compete in both men and women. These players will compete with their own money in the hope that their achievements will be compensated.
This hope is not low because underwater hockey has up to 4 gold medals, while the number of competing teams includes only 5 countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and the host Philippines.
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