Field Hockey: Get the Puck Out

[SnideAsides]

Or, as Americans probably remember it, "the hockey with the skirts".

[Dots And Stripes]

US women finished pool play 4-1! They had finished dead last in London, so this is a huge improvement.

[shang yiet]

Funny how field hockey is seen as a woman's game in the US when the macho men of Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan,  South Africa, Argentina, Germany and the Netherlands dominate the game.

[Dots And Stripes]

It's also a sport played by men internationally because it is big in the Middle East for men and not women.

[galaxygirl76]

First time I've been able to watch field hockey and holy crap I hate the blue field. I hate the bright green outside of the field even more, the combination of those two colors is making my eyes hurt and giving me an headache..

 

Can't believe that #1 and #2 of the world are already playing each other in the quarter finals.

[bosawks]

Out of everything I've seen so far in these Olympics getting whacked by a field hockey ball looks the most agonizing....

[galaxygirl76]

I can say out of personal experience that getting hit by a hockey ball hurts like a bitch.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

That blue field literally hurt my eyes. I tried to watch a few minutes of the Netherlands/Australia game today and my eyes are still recovering. 

[galaxygirl76]

8 minutes ago, MattDuffysCat said:

That blue field literally hurt my eyes. I tried to watch a few minutes of the Netherlands/Australia game today and my eyes are still recovering. 

It gave me an headache and it shows my dedication to the Dutch team that I watched the whole thing.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

1 hour ago, galaxygirl76 said:

I can say out of personal experience that getting hit by a hockey ball hurts like a bitch.

I've only been hit by the stick and that was painful enough - luckily I never got hit by the actual ball!

[greyhorse]

I'll admit I know nothing about field hockey other than when we actually played in junior high school.  And we played with no protective gear whatsoever apart from the goalie getting some ratty goalie pads.  Definitely no helmets.  I thought it was incredibly dangerous, but as an 8th grader, who were we to complain?

I saw I think what they call a free shot, where everybody on the attacking side stood outside the semi-circle, and I believe the defenders had to all start on the goalline and all came rushing out at the same time.  It looked like they were all wearing extra gloves or padding or something?  I saw a lot of them toss something off to the side once the shot was blocked and the ball headed in the other direction.  What was that all about?

One of the fun things about the Olympics is seeing sports that we never see on tv and trying to make sense of it.  Sort of like curling in the Winter games.

[SnideAsides]

Just to put Australia losing in the quarter finals into context: Aside from the Moscow boycott, the men's team has finished in the top six at every Olympics since Melbourne. It could still happen again this time (since fifth through eighth are determined via playoffs), but that's the kind of situation we're in.

[galaxygirl76]

Is Australia just not that good this year or were the Dutch that much better?

[SnideAsides]

I think it's a combination of the Dutch being one of the best teams in the world, the Australians having a bad day, and the fact that the investment in sport circa Sydney has finally worked its way out of the system. It's the same reason we've kind of fallen away in the cycling and swimming too: most of the people who were directly affected by that investment have retired (and the few who haven't are close; no way Anna Meares will compete in Tokyo), while the UK's investment for London is still around.

[galaxygirl76]

Interesting. So is it a widely played sport at all like it is in the Netherlands where it's the second most played team sport after soccer(which is probably why we do so well at the Olympics)?

[SnideAsides]

Not really. Most schools will have field hockey equipment for PE classes, but it's not a sport many people play outside of that context. I'd put it well outside the top ten (the top two are absolutely football and cricket, with rugby league the dominant football code in New South Wales and Queensland and Australian Rules football played everywhere else; Australian Rules is so big that it's had Evander Holyfield, Carl Lewis, John McEnroe, Elton John, a Mir cosmonaut, Heather Locklear, Archbishop Tutu, and a 100-year-old George Burns do commercials for it), but probably just within the top twenty.

[Dots And Stripes]

4 hours ago, greyhorse said:

I'll admit I know nothing about field hockey other than when we actually played in junior high school.  And we played with no protective gear whatsoever apart from the goalie getting some ratty goalie pads.  Definitely no helmets.  I thought it was incredibly dangerous, but as an 8th grader, who were we to complain?

I saw I think what they call a free shot, where everybody on the attacking side stood outside the semi-circle, and I believe the defenders had to all start on the goalline and all came rushing out at the same time.  It looked like they were all wearing extra gloves or padding or something?  I saw a lot of them toss something off to the side once the shot was blocked and the ball headed in the other direction.  What was that all about?

One of the fun things about the Olympics is seeing sports that we never see on tv and trying to make sense of it.  Sort of like curling in the Winter games.

That's a corner. The defending team gets 4 players who start behind the goal line. The offensive team gets as many players on or near the circle as they want. I noticed the protective gear too. When I played in high school we didn't have that. We also weren't as powerful as these players. I believe the U.S. women's flyer (first defender to run out towards whoever receives the ball) didn't use the face mask. That takes guts. 

[MVFrostsMyPie]

My eyes are functioning normal again hours later. No more squinting and weird blurriness! I guess sometimes HDTV can be a little *too* HD. #bluefieldofdeath

[bosawks]

16 hours ago, galaxygirl76 said:

I can say out of personal experience that getting hit by a hockey ball hurts like a bitch.

I've been smacked by a squash ball and I thought that hurt like a bitch.....

[galaxygirl76]

Sad, sad, sad about the loss to Belgium, it was deserved because Belgium was better. At least the Queen doesn't have to pick sides again between her new country(Netherlands) and her birth country(Argentina). I don't know how she does it because I'm 500% team NL(I've been in the US for 11 years now).

[walnutqueen]

I would've liked to watch some of this, but the colors really did make my eyes hurt.  :-(