Underwater hockey
Underwater hockey (also known as octopush ) is a team sport in which six players per team, equipped with snorkels , masks and fins , try to get a lead puck into the opposing goal at the bottom of a swimming pool with the help of a stick .
The goal is a 3 m wide metal channel with a rear wall and a slope on the front. The puck weighs 1.3 kg (± 0.2 kg) and is coated with plastic, which increases its grip and at the same time protects the tiles.
The team membership can be read from the club and cap color: The blue team has black clubs, the white team white. The caps correspond to those of the water ball , have an auricle protection and are marked with the player number.
In addition to fins, mask, snorkel and cap, the equipment includes a silicone- protected glove and a short wooden or plastic stick. The club can be a maximum of 35 cm long, but is rarely longer than 30 cm. Strikers mostly use small, agile clubs, while defenders prefer heavier models.
A field suitable for competitions is 21–25 m long, 12–15 m wide and 2.00–3.65 m deep (± 10%, slight slope permitted). For competitions in 50 m pools, two playing fields (each with an alternating alley) and a warm-up area can often be set up. The referees then use different acoustic signals, e.g. B. Underwater horn in pool A, chime in pool B.
Underwater hockey in Germany
It all started with some underwater rugby players from the Giessen university team, who began to train underwater hockey in 1996. At the invitation of the French FFESSM (Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins), a German team took part in a European Championship for the first time in 1997. This participation in the European Championship in Reims was immediately rewarded with a seventh place.
Since January 26, 1998, underwater hockey has been the official competitive sport of the Association of German Sports Divers . In 2017, a Germany-wide game operation was held for the first time, from which the TCO Weinheim eV emerged as the winner. The championship title went to TCO Weinheim eV again in 2018. In 2019, the first team of Unterwasserhockey München defeated TCO Weinheim and was the second team to win the German championship title.
German national teams have participated in the following European and World Championships:
- 1998 World Cup in San José, USA
- 2003 EM in San Marino, San Marino
- 2005 European Championship in Marseille, France (women's and men's teams)
- 2009 World Cup in Kranj, Slovenia (women's team)
- 2013 World Cup in Eger, Hungary (women's team)
- 2016 World Cup in Stellenbosch, South Africa (women's team)
- 2017 EM in Eger, Hungary (women's team)
- 2018 World Cup in Quebec City, Canada (women's team)
While underwater rugby is relatively well known in German-speaking countries, underwater hockey is still largely unknown. Currently, underwater hockey is only practiced as a competitive sport at six German and one Swiss locations: Munich , Heidelberg , Elmshorn , Berlin , Hanover , Laubach and Zurich , as well as university sports in Leipzig.
See also
Web links
- Underwater hockey in Germany
- Underwater hockey in Switzerland
- Alan Blake - How Octopush was created (translation of the short version) The history of the creation of Octopush (underwater hockey)
- CMAS Underwater Hockey Commission The underwater hockey commission of the international diving sports association CMAS takes care of z. B. the organization of European and world championships.
Individual evidence
- ↑ VDST eV | Federal Office | Berliner Str. 312 | 63067 Offenbach | Tel +49 69 981902-5: VDST: gaming operations. Retrieved October 20, 2017 .
- ↑ https://hochschulsport.uni-leipzig.de/angebote/aktueller_länge/_Unterwasserhockey.html