By Courtney Prieur
Underwater hockey is making a big splash among young Ottawa athletes.
Canadians love their hockey. And just when you think they’ve figured out every way to play it, they discover a creative twist. Surprisingly, Ottawa has had an underwater hockey club for almost two decades, but as Centretown player Richard Robinson says, “people don’t believe it exists.”
Robinson, 32, was introduced to the game in 1988 during a scuba diving class and has been playing ever since. He’s among 40 middle-aged Ottawa players who are seeing young people take an interest in the sport.
He says it’s very encouraging.
“They’re our future, us old guys are eventually going to need people to replace us!”
And that’s just what Centretown’s William Litchfield, 20, plans to do.
“I joined the sport because I was looking for something competitive, but in the water,” he says. “I got bored of doing laps over and over. This is fast-paced, exciting, it gives me a rush when I play.”
Litchfield already has a friend hooked on the sport and fathers are bringing their sons to practice.
But Ottawa isn’t the only place where younger players are turning up. Robinson said at the last national competition there were two junior teams, from Calgary and Ontario, and he expects that Montreal will send a few. Calgary is hosting the next world competition in 2002, where juniors will have their first opportunity to compete.
The Ottawa club, which plays at three local pools, hopes the younger players will spread the word about the sport, telling others what the game is all about.
From the surface, the game looks like a herd of people swimming on top of each other in a race for the puck, pausing for a split second to take a breath and then diving back under. But underneath the water, you can see the players turn their body to protect the puck from being stolen, defensive lineups are visible, and the puck-handling skills incredible.
Robinson describes the game as “poetry in motion.”
“It’s amazing to see how fast the puck moves along the bottom of the pool and how when one player has to leave it to go up for a breath, a teammate has perfectly timed his decent to take over the play and score a goal,” he says.
A game is 30 minutes long. There are six players on each team, but there is no goalie. All players must protect the net, like in basketball. The net is a long, narrow, L-shaped piece of metal placed along the bottom of the pool, and they use a puck that looks like a regular hockey puck, except it’s heavier and covered in plastic.
Their equipment consists of a water polo cap with an attached snorkel, a scuba mask and flippers. They also wear a glove on the playing hand covered in silicone or dried glue to prevent their knuckles from scraping the bottom as they push the puck along. The players use handmade, 30-centimetre wooden sticks, painted black or white, so players can tell the teams apart.
But when the game first started in 1954, the stick was longer and Y-shaped. Underwater hockey, or Octapush, as it was first called, started in England. Alan Blake invented it to improve the snorkeling skills of his scuba students in the winter. Since then, the game has evolved in over 20 countries.
In Canada, a wide range of men and women, young and old, are attracted to the sport. Sixty-year-old Phil Chabot has been playing for 10 years. “I like the team spirit, everybody welcomed me with open arms,” he says.
Chabot says it’s a very social activity. “We go out for pizza and a beer after practice and get to know each other.”
The club practises three times a week. New players are encouraged to come to the Saturday practices at Sawmill Creek pool to learn basic techniques.
The equipment costs between $150 and $250 and each practice has a $5 fee.