Hockey

Indian Sports Awards

ield hockey is a team sport in which a team of players attempt to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking the ball with hockey sticks into the opposing team's goal. Its official name is simply hockey, and this is the common name for it in many countries. However, the name field hockey is used in countries where the word hockey is usually reserved for another form of hockey, such as ice hockey or street hockey.

Hockey has several regular international tournaments for both men and women. These include the Olympic Games, the quadrennial Hockey World Cups, the annual Champions Trophies and World Cups for juniors.

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is the global governing body. It organizes events such as the Hockey World Cup and Women's Hockey World Cup. The Hockey Rules Board under FIH produces rules for the sport.

Many countries have extensive club competitions for junior and senior players. Despite the large number of participants—hockey is thought to be the field team sport with the second largest number of participants worldwide (the first being association football)—club hockey is not a large spectator sport and few players play as full-time professionals.

In countries where winter prevents play outdoors, hockey is played indoors during the off-season. This variant, indoor field hockey, differs in a number of respects. For example, it is 6-a-side rather than 11, the field is reduced to approximately 40 m x 20 m; the shooting circles are 9m; players may not raise the ball outside the circle nor hit it. The sidelines are replaced with barriers to rebound the ball.

Highest governing body     International Hockey Federation
Nickname(s)     Hockey
First played     19th century
Characteristics
Contact     No
Team members     11 players
Categorization     Indoor–Outdoor
Equipment     Field Hockey ball, Field Hockey Stick
Olympic     1908, 1920, 1928–present

History

Games played with curved sticks and a ball have been found throughout history and the world. There are 4000-year-old drawings from Egypt. Hurling dates to before 1272BC and there is a depiction from 500BC in Ancient Greece when the game was called "Κερητίζειν" (pronounced "kerytezin") because it was played with a horn ("κέρας" in Greek) and a ball-like object. In Inner Mongolia, China, the Daur people have been playing Beikou (a game similar to modern field hockey) for about 1,000 years.[3]  There were hockey-like games throughout Europe during the Middle Ages[citation needed] and the word 'hockey' was recorded in 1363 when Edward III of England issued the proclamation: "[m]oreover we ordain that you prohibit under penalty of imprisonment all and sundry from such stone, wood and iron throwing; handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games"

The modern game grew from English public schools in the early 19th century. The first club was in 1849 at Blackheath in south-east London, but the modern rules grew out of a version played by Middlesex cricket clubs for winter sport[citation needed]. Teddington Hockey Club formed the modern game by introducing the striking circle and changing the ball to a sphere from a rubber cube[citation needed]. The Hockey Association was founded in 1886. The first international took place in 1895 (Ireland 3, Wales 0) and the International Rules Board was founded in 1900. Hockey was played at the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1920. It was dropped in 1924, leading to the foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Hockey sur Gazon (FIH) as an international governing body by seven continental European nations, and hockey was reinstated in 1928. Men's hockey united under the FIH in 1970.

The two oldest trophies are the Irish Senior Cup, which 1st XI teams compete for, and the Irish Junior Cup.

The game had been taken to India by British servicemen and the first clubs formed in Calcutta in 1885[citation needed]. The Beighton Cup and the Aga Khan tournament commenced within ten years. Entering the Olympics in 1928, India won all five games without conceding a goal and won from 1932 until 1956 and then in 1964 and 1980. Pakistan won in 1960, 1968 and 1984.

In the early 1970s artificial turf began to be used. Synthetic pitches changed most aspects of hockey, gaining speed. New tactics and techniques such as the Indian dribble developed, followed by new rules to take account. The switch to synthetic surfaces ended Indian and Pakistani domination because artificial turf was too expensive—in comparison to the wealthier European countries—and since the 1970s Australia, The Netherlands and Germany have dominated at the Olympics.

Women's hockey was first played at British universities and schools, and the first club, Molesey Ladies, was founded in 1887[citation needed]. The first national association was the Irish Ladies Hockey Union in 1894[citation needed], and though rebuffed by the Hockey Association, women's hockey grew rapidly around the world. This led to the International Federation of Women's Hockey Associations (IFWHA) in 1927, though this did not include many continental European countries where women played as sections of men's associations and were affiliated to the FIH. The IFWHA held conferences every three years, and tournaments associated with these were the primary IFWHA competitions. These tournaments were non-competitive until 1975.

By the early 1970s there were 22 associations with women's sections in the FIH and 36 associations in the IFWHA. Discussions started about a common rule book. The FIH introduced competitive tournaments in 1974, forcing the acceptance of the principle of competitive hockey by the IFWHA in 1973. It took until 1982 for the two bodies to merge, but this allowed the introduction of women's hockey to the Olympic games from 1980 where, as in the men's game, The Netherlands, Germany, and Australia have been consistently strong. Argentina has emerged as a team to be reckoned with since 2000, winning medals at the last two Olympics, and the world championship in 2002.\

The field of play

Most hockey field dimensions were originally fixed using whole numbers of imperial measures. Nevertheless, metric measurements are now the official dimensions as laid down by the International Hockey Federation  (FIH) in the "Rules of Hockey". It is these dimensions that are given in this article, with the imperial units in parentheses. The pitch is a 91.40 m × 55 m (100 yd × 60 yd) rectangular field. At each end is a goal 2.14 m (7 feet) high and 3.66 m (12 ft) wide measured from the inner sides of the posts and crossbar, and an approximately semi-circular area 14.63 m (16 yd) from the goal known as the shooting circle (or D  or arc),[5]  bounded by a solid line, with a dotted line 5 m (5 yd 6 in—this marking was not established until after metric conversion) from that, as well as lines across the field 22.90 m (25 yd) from each end-line (generally referred to as the 23 m lines) and in the center of the field. A spot 0.15m in diameter, called the penalty spot or stroke mark, is placed with its centre 6.40 m (7 yd) from the centre of each goal.

Traditional grass pitches are far less common in modern hockey with most hockey being played on synthetic surfaces. Since the 1970s, sand-based pitches were favoured as they dramatically speed up the pace of the game. However, in recent years there has been a massive increase in the number of "water-based" artificial turfs. Water-based astro turfs enable the ball to be transferred more quickly than on the original sand-based surfaces and it is this characteristic that has made them the surface of choice for international and national league competitions. Water-based surfaces are also less abrasive than the sand-based variety and hence reduce the level of injury to players when they come into contact with the surface. The FIH are now proposing that new surfaces being laid should be of a hybrid variety which require less watering. This is due to the negative ecological effects of the high water requirements of water-based synthetic fields.

Rules and play

The game is played between two teams of up to sixteen players, eleven of whom are permitted to be on the pitch at any one time. The remaining five players, the substitutes, may be substituted in any combination, from one to five, an unlimited number of times in the course of a game. Substitutions are permitted at any point in the game, apart from between the award and end of a penalty corner; the only exception to this rule is for injury or suspension of the defending goalkeeper.

Players are permitted to play the ball with the flat of the 'face side' and with the edges of the head and handle of the hockey stick with the exception that, for reasons of safety, the ball may not be struck 'hard' with a forehand edge stroke, because of the difficulty of controlling the height and direction of the ball from that stroke.

The flat side is always on the "natural" side for a right-handed person swinging the stick at the ball from right to left. Left-handed sticks are rare, but available; however they are pointless as the rules forbid their use in a game. To make a strike at the ball with a left to right swing the player must present the flat of the 'face' of the stick to the ball by 'reversing' the stick head, i.e. by turning the handle through approximately 180°(while a reverse edge hit would turn the stick head through approximately 90° from the position of an upright forehand stoke with the 'face' of the stick head.

Edge hitting of the ball underwent a two year 'experimental period', twice the usual length of an 'experimental trial' and is still a matter of some controversy within the sport. Ric Charlesworth, the current Australian coach, has been a strong critic of the unrestricted use of the reverse edge hit. The 'hard' forehand edge hit was banned after similar concerns were expressed about the ability of players to direct the ball accurately, but the reverse edge hit does appear to be more predictable and controllable than its counterpart.

Positions

There are no fixed positions (even a goalkeeper is not required under the 2007-2008 rules), but most teams arrange themselves (in a similar way to Association football teams) into fullbacks (defence), midfielders  (halfback) and forwards  (front line). Many teams include a single sweeper. The rules do not specify a minimum number of players for a match to take place, but most competitions have some local ruling on this, with seven players being a common minimum.

One player from each team may be designated the goalkeeper. Goalkeepers must wear at least a helmet and a different coloured shirt in order to have "goalkeeping privileges". They may also opt to wear additional padding such as "kickers" over the shoes, leg-guards, padded shorts, body and arm protectors—if they opt for this protection, they are termed "fully protected goalkeepers". Although such goalkeepers may block or deflect the ball from the goal with any part of their bodies, and propel the ball with their feet, legs, the associated padding or their stick, they must always carry a stick. Goalkeepers are permitted to play the ball outside their defensive circle (scoring area or "D"), but may only use their hockey-stick in this circumstance, not their kickers; leg-guards; gloves/hand protectors or any part of the body. Fully protected goalkeepers are prohibited from passing their side's defensive 23 m line during play, unless they are taking a penalty stroke. A goalkeeper who is wearing only a helmet and different coloured shirt may remove the helmet and play anywhere on the field and retains goalkeeping privileges even if they do not have chance to replace the helmet when play returns to their defensive circle. They must however wear a helmet to defend penalty corners and penalty strokes.

General play

For the purposes of the rules, all players on the team in possession of the ball are attackers, and those on the team without the ball are defenders.
Sideline hit in a match Standard Athletic Club vs. British School of Paris (1996)

The match is officiated by two field umpires. Traditionally each umpire generally controls half of the field, divided roughly diagonally. These umpires are often assisted by a technical bench including a timekeeper and record keeper.

Prior to the start of the game, a coin is tossed and the winning captain can choose a starting end or start with the ball. The game time is divided into two equal halves of 35 minutes each, with five minutes for half-time. At the start of each half, as well as after goals are scored, play is started with a pass from the centre of the field. All players must start in their defensive half (apart from the player making the pass), but the ball may be played in any direction along the floor. Each team starts with the ball in one half, and the team that conceded the goal has possession for the restart.

Field players may only play the ball with the face of the stick. Tackling is permitted as long as the tackler does not make contact with the attacker or his stick before playing the ball (contact after the tackle may also be penalised if the tackle was made from a position where contact was inevitable). Further, the player with the ball may not deliberately use his body to push a defender out of the way.

Field players may not play the ball with their feet, but if the ball accidentally hits the feet, and the player gains no benefit from the contact, then the contact is not penalised. Although there has been a change in the wording of this rule from 1 January 2007, the current FIH umpires' briefing instructs umpires not to change the way they interpret this rule.

Obstruction typically occurs in three circumstances - when a defender comes between the player with possession and the ball in order to prevent them tackling; when a defender's stick comes between the attacker's stick and the ball or makes contact with the attacker's stick or body; and also when blocking the opposition's attempt to tackle a teammate with the ball (called third party obstruction).

When the ball passes completely over the sidelines (on the sideline is still in), it is returned to play with a sideline hit, taken by a member of the team whose players were not the last to touch the ball before crossing the sideline. The ball must be placed on the sideline, with the hit taken from as near the place the ball went out of play as possible. If it crosses the backline after last touched by an attacker, a 15 m (16 yd) hit. A 15 m hit is also awarded for offenses committed by the attacking side within 15 m of the end of the pitch they are attacking.