330 Secondary Schools players got to play in a Schools Underwater Hockey tournament over the weekend of 2 – 4 July 2021 at the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre in Wellington. 

For most of the players in the Cup competition (Junior grades) this would have been their first Schools tournament and for the Senior grades competing in the Championship competition it would have been 663 days since their last school’s tournament.

36 teams representing some 25 schools from Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, and Christchurch played across the 4 grades and we saw some great hockey and more importantly school players having lots of fun.  The excitement level at this large tournament was very high increased by the very supportive parents (and grandparents).

Some notable highlights

• Scots College Junior Open team – played 8 of the 10 games with 6 players and the remaining 2 games with only 5 players.
• Burnside High travelling up from Christchurch – back at schools’ hockey after a break of 10 years.
• Rongotai College – also back at schools’ hockey.
• Harriet Whitmore turning up to coach 4 days after hand surgery – and winning the fair play coach award for 2021.

After 147 games and 1,274 goals, we found our worthy winners and qualifiers for this year’s New Zealand Secondary School Cup and Championship tournament

In the Cup competition, Nelson College for Girls went through unbeaten winning the Junior Girls final against Wellington Girls College 7-1.  In the Junior Open grade Hutt International Boys School over came a round robin loss to Wellington College A to play some smart hockey in the final to win a very close and tense 3-2

In the Championship competition, Samuel Marsden Collegiate won the Senior Girls final against Wellington Girls College 4-1 after drawing with them in the round robin.  The Senior Girls grade was very close with very little between the top four teams as was reflected in the 3^rd/4^th playoff won by Nelson College for Girls in sudden death 3-2 against Wellington East Girls College.

In the Senior Open grade, the two top teams from the respective pools met in what was a very close final with Wellington College winning 3-2 against Nelson College.

Full results including the team MVPs can be found here.

Many thanks to the team that brought you this tournament, Chris, James, Dougal, Leah, Ben, Sarah, Nicki, and Tristan.  Also, a special thanks to the Nelson referees for their hard work on Sunday helping us out.